1.5?  HI 


.l.uIiiilii.tiUiliiiiiiiiliiiiiliii 


liiLd? 


*     FEB  28  1903      * 


WilUm  ^tWitt  })ptie. 


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JESUS'    WAY 

^n  Appreciation  of  t^e  tJlntUn^ 
in  t\it  ^pnoptic  (Basj^tls 


BY  / 

WILLIAM  DeWITtWdE 

PRESIDENT  OF   BOWDOIN  COLLEGK 


But  Saul,  yet  breathing  threatening  and  slaughter  against  the 
disciples  of  the  Lord,  went  unto  the  high  priest,  and  asked  of 
him  letters  to  Damascus  unto  the  synagogues,  that  if  he  found 
any  that  were  of  the  Way,  whether  men  or  women,  he  might 
bring  them  bound  to  Jerusalem.  — Acts  ix.  i,  2. 


BOSTON  AND  NEW  YORK 
HOUGHTON,  MIFFLIN  AND  COMPANY 

1902 


COPYRIGHT,   1902,  BY  WILLIAM  DEWITT  HYDE 
ALL    RIGHTS   RESERVED 

Published  October,  igo2 


PREFACE 

Before  Paul  had  cast  it  into  a  theology, 
or  "  John  "  had  developed  it  into  a  philo- 
sophy ;  before  the  Catholic  had  organized 
it  into  an  institution,  or  the  Protestant  had 
stereotyped  it  into  a  creed,  primitive  Chris- 
tianity was  known  simply  as  the  Way. 
Jesus  Hved  his  life  originally,  successfully ; 
in  love  to  God  and  man.  In  living  this 
gentle,  generous,  joyous  life,  he  struck  out 
a  Way  he  wanted  every  one  to  know  and 
share.  A  Way  of  life,  like  the  trade  of  a 
carpenter  or  the  art  of  a  musician,  has  cer- 
tain principles  and  laws,  discovered  by  ex- 
perience, and  as  precepts  capable  of  being 
taught.  These  precepts  are  not  arbitrary 
impositions  to  be  enforced  by  pains  and 
penalties.    Nothing  was  farther  from  Jesus' 


iv  PREFACE 

purpose  than  to  be  such  a  taskmaster  over 
the  consciences  of  men.  Because  his  Way 
could  not  be  had  apart  from  the  principles 
on  which  it  rests,  Jesus  gave  himself, 
eagerly  and  enthusiastically,  to  the  work  of 
teaching  and  preaching  them. 

These  principles  of  the  Way  were  to 
him  what  the  laws  of  navigation  are  to  the 
sailor,  and  the  laws  of  perspective  to  the 
artist  :  helps  in  doing  the  thing  he  most 
delighted  to  do.  Though  to  the  outsider 
these  principles  may  seem  like  a  yoke  and 
a  burden,  yet,  viewed  as  essential  condi- 
tions of  living  the  noblest  and  happiest 
life,  even  the  yoke  becomes,  to  all  who 
wear  it  rightly,  easy  ;  and  the  burden  light 
to  all  who  catch  the  spirit  of  his  Way. 

The  most  obvious  advantage  of  a  return 
to  the  primitive  view  of  Christianity  as  a 
Way  of  life,  rather  than  an  ecclesiastical 
institution  or  a  system  of  theological  or 
philosophic    doctrine,  is   the   experimental 


PREFACE  V 

basis  it  gives  to  the  Christian  life.  In  all 
matters  of  experience  proof  follows,  does 
not  precede,  the  test.  A  man,  for  instance, 
cavils  at  golf.  The  golf  enthusiast  is 
dumb,  if  he  be  wise.  He  knows  it  is  of 
no  use  to  argue  with  his  critic.  His  only 
chance  is  to  entice  him  on  to  the  links, 
put  the  driver  in  his  hand,  and  then,  if 
the  caviler  makes  one  good  drive,  the 
chances  are  ten  to  one  that  he  will  become 
a  devotee  of  the  sport,  which,  in  advance 
of  personal  experience,  he  boastfully  de- 
spised. Proof  founded  on  experience  can- 
not be  refuted  or  denied.  Yet  since  expe- 
rience comes  first  and  proof  second  in  all 
practical  matters,  industrial,  artistic,  intel- 
lectual, moral,  spiritual,  we  must  take  our 
initial  experience  as  the  golfer  takes  his 
first  drive,  as  the  swimmer  takes  his  first 
stroke,  in  advance  of  demonstration,  on  the 
recommendation  of  others  who  have  had 
the  experience  ;  or,  as  Jesus,  Paul,  Augus- 


vi  PREFACE 

tine,  Luther;  and  Paulsen,  Harnack,  Sa- 
batier,  and  James  in  our  day,  tell  us,  on 
faith. 

Jesus'  Way  is  simply  one  of  many  possi- 
ble ways  in  which  a  man  may  live.  Ten 
thousand  times  ten  thousand,  and  thousands 
of  thousands  of  people  have  tried  it  and 
found  it  superior  to  any  other  way  of  life 
they  have  experienced  or  can  conceive. 
Their  experience  and  testimony  create  a 
strong  presumption  in  its  favor.  One's 
own  lack  of  experience  is  no  argument 
against  it.  The  responsibility  rests  en- 
tirely^ on  the  will  of  the  individual.  If  a 
man  does  not  skate,  the  fault  is  not  with 
the  laws  of  motion  or  the  properties,  of  ice. 
It  is  because  he  does  not  believe  it  is  worth 
while  to  put  on  the  skates,  and  take  a  few 
incidental  falls.  Precisely  so,  if  a  man  is 
not  a  Christian,  he  cannot?,  in  these  days 
of  the  supremacy  of  the  empirical  method, 
throw  the  blame  on  to  anything  so  respecta- 


PREFACE  vii 

ble  as  intellectual  difficulties,  or  conscien- 
tious scruples,  or  theological  doubts.  That 
pretext  was  in  good  repute  twenty  or  thirty- 
years  ago  ;  but  with  the  shifting  of  empha- 
sis from  doctrine  to  life,  from  adventitious 
signs  and  evidences,  against  which  Jesus 
warned  his  disciples,  to  the  individual  and 
personal  experience  to  which  he  always  ap- 
pealed, the  intellectual  grounds  for  neglect 
of  the  Christian  Way  of  life  have  been 
removed.  If  a  man  is  not  a  Christian, 
living  according  to  the  principles  which 
Jesus  taught,  it  is  simply  because  he  does 
not  rightly  understand  Jesus'  Way;  or 
else  because  he  has  found  some  other 
way  of  life  which  he  likes,  or  pretends  to 
like,  better.  There  is  no  valid  intellectual 
objection  to  essential  Christianity.  For 
Christianity  is  a  Way  of  life,  an  experi- 
ence, like  music  and  painting,  like  golf  and 
tennis,  like  hunting  and  fishing.  The  fact 
that  all  men  who  have  had  deep  experience 


viii  PREFACE 

of  it  like  it,  and  that  'it  works  out  satisfac- 
tory results  in  character,  conduct,  peace, 
and  happiness,  is  the  great  argument  for  it. 
That  a  great  many  people  have  never 
tried  it,  and  do  not  care  to  try  it,  is  no 
more  of  an  argument  against  it  than  color- 
blind people  are  an  argument  against  paint- 
ing, or  deafness  is  a  refutation  of  music's 
claims  and  charms. 

The  prevalent  confusion  on  this  point 
has  come  from  mixing  up  scientific  and 
historical  with  strictly  moral  and  spiritual 
matters.  Men  who  are  utterly  devoid  of 
intellectual  seriousness,  who  have  never 
touched  so  much  as  the  tips  of  their  intel- 
lectual fingers  to  the  heavy  burdens  of 
scientific  and  historical  scholarship,  stoutly 
profess  their  "  faith,"  as  they  miscall  it,  in 
discredited  scientific  theories  and  disproved 
historical  assumptions :  and  then  call  those 
who  run  not  with  them  in  this  excess  of 
intellectual    riot    infidels    and   unbelievers. 


PREFACE  ix 

True  faith  is  a  very  different  thing  from 
this  stupid,  stultifying  profession  that  one 
believes  what  is  traditional,  or  respectable, 
or  profitable  to  believe  about  the  way  the 
world  was  created,  or  the  Bible  was  com- 
posed, or  this  or  that  particular  event  hap- 
pened two  or  three  thousand  years  ago. 
Faith  is  the  trust  of  an  inexperienced  pupil 
in  his  expert  teacher ;  the  response  of  the 
apprentice  to  the  word  of  the  master.  Re- 
ligious faith  is  the  outgoing  of  a  good  im- 
pulse within  us  toward  accomplished  good- 
ness in  God  and  good  men  in  the  world 
outside. 

A  good  life,  like  that  of  Jesus,  is  the 
only  adequate  expression  of  his  Way.  For 
the  life  is  the  Way  in  successful  oper- 
ation. The  teaching  of  the  principles  of 
the  Way,  apart  from  the  life  in  which  they 
are  embodied,  is  comparatively  dry  and 
fruitless.  Jesus  fused  the  teaching  and  the 
life  in  his  wondrous  personality.    His  gath- 


X  PREFACE 

ered  sayings  constitute  the  most  precious 
literary  treasures  of  the  world.  Yet  they 
derive  their  value  to-day  from  the  inter- 
pretation given  to  them  by  the  lives  of  his 
faithful  followers. 

This  little  book  takes  ofF  from  the  slen- 
der biographical  thread  on  which  they  are 
loosely  strung,  out  of  the  alloy  of  picture 
and  parable  in  which  they  are  artistically 
coined,  apart  from  the  gilded  margin  of 
miracle  in  which  they  are  elaborately 
framed,  the  two  hundred  or  more  precepts 
of  which  the  teaching  of  Jesus,  as  recorded 
in  the  Synoptic  Gospels,  is  composed ;  and 
groups  them  together,  freely  translated, 
under  a  dozen  heads,  according  to  their  logi- 
cal relations  and  common-sense  proportions. 
The  task  is  simple  :  for  these  sayings  lie 
plain  upon  the  surface,  where  he  who  runs 
may  read.  Yet  as  a  dozen  artists  make  as 
many  different  pictures  of  the  same  land- 
scape, in   a  work  like  this  emphasis,  per- 


PREFACE  xi 

spective,  point  of  view,  count  for  so  much 
that  no  two  persons  who  might  attempt  it 
would  get  the  same  result.  Hence  I  have 
called  the  outcome  an  appreciation  ;  a  term 
intended  to  cover  whatever  sins  of  omission 
or  commission  the  personal  equation  may 
have  introduced. 

Teaching  spiritual  things  through  the 
printed  page  is  so  difficult  and  unpromising, 
not  to  say  impossible,  a  task,  that  I  must 
ask  the  reader  to  interpret  each  statement 
in  the  light  of  his  own  experience,  in  case 
he  has  experience  on  the  subject  treated  ; 
and  in  case  he  has  not,  in  terms  of  the 
experience  of  the  best  Christian  he  ever 
knew,  —  father,  mother,  teacher,  friend  ; 
living  or  dead.  For  the  real  Bible,  and  the 
only  illuminating  commentary  upon  it,  is 
the  life  of  men  and  women  in  whom  Jesus' 
Way  is  reproduced.  Even  the  Sacred 
Scriptures  are  but  the  reflection  of  such 
lives ;  and  of  course  a  book  like  this,  at  its 


xii  PREFACE 

best,  is  only  the  reflection  of  a  reflection  ; 
a  mere  guide-post  pointing  in  the  direction 
of  the  Life  which  is  the  Way. 

WILLIAM    DeWITT   HYDE. 

BowDoiN  College,   Brunswick,  Maine. 
September  23,1902. 


CONTENTS 

CHAP.  PAGE 

I.     THE    FATHER  :    THE    PRINCIPLE    OF    THE 

WAY I 

II.    THE    SON  :     THE    INCARNATION     OF    THE 

WAY 17 

III.  THE  KINGDOM  :  THE  SPIRIT  OF  THE  WAY  3  I 
rV.  FAITH  :  THE  GRASP  OF  THE  WAY  .  .  39 
V.     REPENTANCE  I     THE    ENTRANCE    TO    THE 

WAY 55 

VI.     FORGIVENESS  :  THE  RESTORATION  TO  THE 

WAY 73 

VII.     LOVE  :    THE  LAW  OF  THE  WAY     ...  85 

VIII.     LOYALTY  :    THE  WITNESS  TO  THE  WAY  .  IO5 

IX.  SACRIFICE  :  THE  COST  OF  THE  WAY  .  II  5 
X.     REVELATION  :     THE     JUDGMENT    OF    THE 

WAY 143 

XI.     BLESSEDNESS  :  THE  REWARD  OF  THE  WAY  I  55 
XII.     UNIVERSALITY  :     THE    TRIUMPH    OF    THE 

WAY      .        .        . 185 


CHAPTER   I 

THE    FATHER :  THE    PRINCIPLE    OF 
THE   WAY 


"At  that  season  Jesus  answered  and  said,  I  thank  thee, 
O  Father,  Lord  of  heaven  and  earth,  that  thou  didst  hide 
these  things  from  the  wise  and  understanding,  and  didst 
reveal  them  unto  babes  :  yea.  Father,  for  so  it  was  well- 
pleasing  in  thy  sight.  All  things  have  been  delivered  unto 
me  of  my  Father  :  and  no  one  knoweth  the  Son,  save  the 
Father  5  neither  doth  any  know  the  Father,  save  the  Son, 
and  he  to  whomsoever  the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him." 
Matthew  xi.  25-27. 

"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see  God." 
Matthew  v.  8. 

"  Love  your  enemies,  and  pray  for  them  that  persecute 
you  ;  that  ye  may  be  sons  of  your  Father  which  is  in  hea- 
ven :  for  he  maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the 
good,  and  sendeth  rain  on  the  just  and  the  unjust.  Ye 
therefore  shall  be  perfect,  as  your  heavenly  Father  is  perfect." 
Matthew  V.  44,  45,  48. 

"If  ye  then,  being  evU,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts 
unto  your  children,  how  much  more  shall  your  Father  which 
is  in  heaven  give  good  things  to  them  that  ask  him  ?  "  Mat- 
thew vii.  II. 

**  Behold  the  birds  of  the  heaven,  that  they  sow  not, 
neither  do  they  reap,  nor  gather  into  barns  j  and  your  hea- 
venly Father  feedeth  them."      Matthew  vi.  26. 

"  But  the  father  said  to  his  servants.  Bring  forth  quickly 
the  best  robe,  and  put  it  on  him ;  and  put  a  ring  on  his 
hand,  and  shoes  on  his  feet  :  and  bring  the  fatted  calf,  and 
kiU  it,  and  let  us  eat,  and  make  merry  :  for  this  my  son  was 
dead,  and  is  alive  again  ;  he  was  lost,  and  is  found."  Luke 
XV.  22-24. 

* '  And  the  servants  of  the  householder  came  and  said  unto 
him.  Sir,  didst  thou  not  sow  good  seed  in  thy  field  ?  whence 
then  hath  it  tares  ?  And  he  said  unto  them,  An  enemy 
hath  done  this."     Matthew  xiii.  27,  28. 


JESUS'  WAY 


CHAPTER   I 

THE  father:   the  principle  of  the 

WAY 

There  are  two  ways  to  live.  One 
may  seek  first,  last,  and  all  the  time, 
to  gratify  his  appetites,  indulge  his 
passions,  and  gain  his  selfish  ends; 
heedless  of  the  bitter  privation,  injury, 
and  anguish  his  greed  and  pride  and 
lust  wreak  on  those  who  cross  his  cruel 
path  or  fall  into  his  hard  and  heartless 
hands.  Until  a  very  fewgenerations  ago, 
our  human  forefathers,  and  of  course 


4  JESUS'    WAY 

all  our  dnimal  ancestors  before  them, 
lived  for  the  most  part  this  life  of  sim- 
ple sensuous  selfishness.  Even  in  the 
highly  evolved  circle  of  twentieth 
century  respectability  to  which  it  is 
our  boast  to  belong,  there  is  enough 
of  this  way  of  life  left  over  to,  rein- 
force our  innate  tendencies  in  this 
direction  by  abundant  suggestion  from 
without;  and  to  give  some  show  of 
excuse  to  those  slanderers  of  the  race, 
the  theologians,  who,  dwelling  too 
exclusively  on  this  aspect  of  our  racial 
inheritance,  have  developed  the  doc- 
trines of  total  depravity  and  original 
sin. 

So  long  as  the  race  lived  in  this 
way,  so  far  as  any  man  lives  in  this 
way  to-day,  neither  man  nor  God  can 
be  seen  aright.     For  the  selfish,  sen- 


THE    FATHER  5 

sual  man,  since  he  recognizes  no  will, 
respects  no  rights,  appreciates  no  in- 
terests other  than  his  own,  thereby  ig- 
nores and  denies,  so  far  as  it  is  possible 
to  do  so,  all  personality  in  the  world 
except  the  tiny  spark  of  it  he  feels 
within  himself  Nature  to  such  a 
man  is  a  mere  shop  full  of  tools  acci- 
dentally adapted  to  serve  his  selfish 
ends.  Among  these  tools,  the  most 
cunningly  constructed  and  serviceable 
of  them  all,  he  finds,  to  be  sure,  beings 
whose  external  resemblance  to  himself 
leads  him  to  call  men  and  women. 
Yet,  inasmuch  as  they  are  treated  as 
mere  means  to  his  selfish  ends,  he  does 
not  recognize  them  as  brothers  and 
sisters,  with  feelings  as  real  and  wills 
as  valid  as  his  own.  Still  less  can 
he  find,  either  in  nature  or  in  human 


6  JESUS'   WAY 

history  and  human  institutions,  any 
trace  of  a  heavenly  Father.  So  far 
as  his  impure  and  selfish  heart  is  able 
to  discover,  he  is  perfectly  right  in 
saying,  what  every  such  fool  must  say 
if  he  is  true  to  his  own  experience, 
"  There  is  no  God."  With  this  in- 
ability to  see  God,  there  usually,  but 
not  always,  goes  one  or  more  of  the 
many  forms  of  the  murderer's  ques- 
tion, "  Am  I  my  brother's  keeper  ?  " 

Now  Jesus  never  wasted  breath  in 
trying  to  prove  to  such  men  the  exist- 
ence of  God.  On  the  contrary,  he 
plainly  told  them  that  it  is  absolutely 
impossible  to  see  God  from  that  point 
of  view;  or  find  their  heavenly  Fa- 
ther in  such  an  experience  as  that. 
For  this  is  the  meaning  of  the  saying, 
"  Neither  doth  any  know  the  Father, 


THE   FATHER  7 

save  the  Son,  and  he  to  whomsoever 
the  Son  willeth  to  reveal  him."  In 
other  words,  it  is  in  the  filial  experi- 
ence that  the  Father  must  be  found. 

What,  then,  is  the  filial  experience? 
How  does  the  Son  reveal  the  Father  ? 
Where  shall  God  be  found?  The 
answer  to  these  questions  is  "Jesus' 
Way." 

Instead  of  regarding  other  men  and 
women  as  mere  tools  for  one's  own 
gratification,  as  mere  means  to  one's 
selfish  ends,  which  is  the  essence  of 
sin,  one  may  recognize  that  they  are 
alive  with  the  same  warm  affections, 
eager  interests,  and  alternating  joys 
and  sorrows  which  he  experiences  in 
himself  One  may  make  his  neigh- 
bors' joys  and  sorrows  as  real  to  him 
as  his  own ;  work  for  their  interests ; 


8  JESUS*    WAY 

find  joy  in  their  successes,  pain  in  their 
reverses,  even  as  he  has  felt  them  on 
a  smaller  scale  within  his  individual 
heart.  This  is  love ;  the  beginning  of 
righteousness ;  the  essence  of  the  spir- 
itual life. 

This  enlarging  sympathy,  however, 
once  started,  does  not  stop  with  our 
fellow  men.  To  a  heart  once  opened 
to  sympathetic  appreciation  of  other 
human. lives,  animals,  plants,  even  the 
mountains  and  seas,  the  fields  and 
streams,  the  processes  of  growth  and 
decay,  the  revolutions  of  the  heavenly 
bodies  and  the  evolution  of  the  forms 
of  life  upon  our  little  planet,  all  re- 
veal, if  not  a  consciousness  like  ours, 
at  least  a  life  and  purpose  akin  to 
those  subconscious  strivings  after  life 
which  form  the  deep  foundation  on 


THE   FATHER  9 

which  our  own  self-consciousness  is 
reared.  Sun,  star,  and  stone ;  water, 
air,  and  earth ;  plant,  fish,  and  beast, 
are  all  parts  of  one  continuous  pro- 
cess which  culminates  in  man ;  from 
which  the  conscious  life  of  man  is  in- 
separable, and  on  which  he  depends 
for  the  satisfaction  of  the  hopes  and 
aspirations  with  which  he  is  endowed. 
Furthermore,  this  process  is  on  the 
whole  beneficent.  The  survival  of 
the  fittest  is  its  law;  which  is  only 
another  way  of  saying  that  good,  not 
evil,  is  its  impulse  and  its  goal.  Now 
a  process  with  an  impulse,  a  law,  and 
a  goal,  moulding  matter  into  forms  of 
beauty,  controlling  force  for  good  ends 
and  crowning  it  all  with  living  beings 
capable  of  appreciating  and  furthering 
the  process  itself,  is  more  than  mate- 


10  JESUS'    WAY 

rial.  It  is  personal.  Its  proper  name 
is  God ;  our  Father  ;  our  Infinite  Com- 
panion ;  our  Eternal  Friend. 

Jesus,  though  by  no  means  the 
first  to  recognize  the  personality  of 
the  God  whom  the  cosmic  process  as 
a  whole  reveals  to  every  sensitive  and 
sympathetic  heart,  was  original  in  the 
clearness  and  fullness  with  which  he 
made  this  central  spiritual  insight  the 
principle  of  the  Way  of  life  in  which 
he  walked  himself,  and  which  he 
commended  to  his  followers  and 
friends.  In  the  beauty  of  the  lilies, 
the  color  of  the  grass,  the  feeding  of 
the  sparrows,  the  rain  and  sunshine 
falling  on  just  and  unjust  alike,  the 
providence  that  watches  over  the  un- 
thankful and  the  evil,  the  faithful 
shepherd   caring   for   his    sheep,   the 


THE    FATHER  ii 

good  Samaritan  nursing  the  wounded 
traveler,  the  kind  father  giving  good 
gifts  to  his  children,  and  welcoming 
with  robe  and  ring  and  feast  and  dance 
the  returning  prodigal,  Jesus  recog- 
nized and  adored,  working  out  on  the 
universal  scale  of  nature  and  human- 
ity, the  same  Spirit  of  beauty,  kind- 
ness, and  beneficence,  which  he  felt 
welling  up  within  his  own  soul. 

This  simple  experience  of  a  love  in 
his  own  soul  responsive  to  the  beauty 
of  the  world  and  the  claims  of  human 
hearts,  hid,  indeed,  as  it  is  from  the 
wise  and  understanding,  yet  transpar- 
ent in  every  pure  and  childlike  heart, 
inexplicable  on  any  other  hypothesis 
than  that  of  a  single  Principle,  infinite 
as  nature,  loving  as  man  at  his  best, 
was  Jesus'  sole,  all-sufficient  evidence 


12  JESUS'    WAY 

of  the  being  of  God.  He  was  him- 
self the  revelation  of  the  Father  ;  and 
the  only  way  he  could  reveal  Him  to 
others  was  by  making  them  admire 
the  beauty  of  nature  and  serve  the 
needs  of  man.  For  admiration  of 
nature  is  participation  in  the  Creator's 
joy ;  service  of  men  is  experience  of 
the  Father's  love.  And  participation 
is  the  only  evidence,  experience  is 
the  only  proof,  which  Jesus  admitted 
for  himself  or  commended  to  his 
disciples. 

This  evidence  of  God  involved  in 
the  filial  experience  of  adoration  of 
nature  and  sympathy  with  men,  hid 
from  ecclesiasticism  and  scholasticism 
for  centuries,  is  thus  well  fitted  to  be- 
come the  light  of  life  to  our  modern 
world.     For  it  appeals  from  tradition, 


THE   FATHER  13 

and  authority,  and  argumentation  to 
the  soHd  rock  of  experience.  If  you 
love  nature  and  humanity,  you  thereby 
enter  into  and  reproduce  the  creative 
love  of  the  Father.  You  live  a  life 
which  you  did  not  create,  but  which 
you  know  is  good,  and  infinite  in  range. 
Nature  has  no  metes  and  bounds  ;  the 
claims  of  our  fellow  men,  embodied 
in  the  moral  ideal,  have  no  limits. 
The  career  open  to  love  is  infinite.  It 
is  the  life  of  the  Father,  which  each 
conscious  child  of  his  is  privileged  to 
share.  No  proof  less  than  the  actual 
experience  of  this  life  of  love  could 
reveal  God  to  any  man.  Yet  every 
man  who  has  this  experience  is  as  sure 
of  a  divine  life  in  the  world  as  he  is  of 
his  own  existence.  The  filial  experi- 
ence has  made  the  Father  manifest. 


14  JESUS'    WAY 

The  principle  of  Jesus'  Way  is, 
therefore,  that  there  is  one  God,  the- 
Creator  of  the  world  and  the  Father 
of  our  spirits ;  of  whom  all  natural 
beauty  is  the  outward  expression,  and 
all  moral  duty  the  inward  voice.  To 
live  in  grateful  adoration  of  all  the 
beauty  and  beneficence  the  outer 
world  contains,  in  sensitive  obedience 
to  every  claim  of  human  sympathy, 
is  to  walk  in  Jesus'  Way.  This  is 
the  one  central  principle  which  runs 
through  Jesus'  scattered  teachings, 
the  bond'  which  binds  them  all  to- 
gether in  the  unity  of  a  Way  which 
is  original,  unique,  supreme,  divine. 

That  there  are  tares  as  well  as 
wheat  in  the  field  of  the  world ;  that 
there  are  falling  towers  that  crush  and 
cruel   men  who   kill,  Jesus  did  not 


THE   FATHER  15 

deny.  Yet,  because  there  was  no 
trace  of  hate  or  malice  in  his  own  pure 
heart,  he  refused  to  believe  that  these 
accidents  and  crimes  were  evidence 
of  any  malice  in  what  we  should  call 
the  Father's  motive;  however  they 
might  be  permitted  as  incidental  in  a 
universe  where  individuals  were  to 
be  intrusted  with  the  perilous  prerog- 
atives of  self-consciousness  and  free 
will.  In  all  this  wanton  wickedness 
he  saw  the  working  of  a  hostile  prin- 
ciple. "  An  enemy  hath  done  this." 
Yet  the  enemy  was  one  which  it  was 
his  mission  to  conquer  and  dislodge. 
Indeed,  through  cheerful  acceptance 
of  the  burdens  which  human  sin  brings 
upon  the  world,  Jesus  revealed  in  him- 
self, and  communicated  to  his  follow- 
ers, that  element  of  sacrifice  which  is 


i6  JESUS'   WAY 

the  deepest  and  tenderest  quality  of 
the  Father's  nature;  and  in  the  lives 
of  Jesus  and  his  true  followers  is  the 
most  complete  and  adequate  revela- 
tion of  the  Father's  heart. 


CHAPTER  II 

THE   SON  :    THE   INCARNATION   OF 
THE   WAY 


"  Wist  ye  not  that  I  must  be  in  my  Father's  house  ?" 
Luke  ii.  49. 

*'  Thou  art  my  beloved  Son  ;  in  thee  I  am  well  pleased." 
Luke  iii.  ^^. 

*'  And  the  devil  said  unto  him,  To  thee  will  I  give  all 
this  authority,  and  the  glory  of  them  :  for  it  hath  been  de- 
livered unto  me  ;  and  to  whomsoever  I  wUl  I  give  it.  If 
thou  therefore  wilt  worship  before  me,  it  shall  all  be  thine. 
And  Jesus  answered  and  said  unto  him,  It  is  written,  Thou 
shalt  worship  the  Lord  thy  God,  and  him  only  shalt  thou 
serve."      Luke  iv.  6-8. 

* '  And  all  bare  him  witness,  and  wondered  at  the  words 
of  grace  which  proceeded  out  of  his  mouth  :  and  they  said, 
Is  not  this  Joseph's  son  ?  "      Luke  iv.  22. 

*'  And  they  go  into  Capernaum  ;  and  straightway  on  the 
Sabbath  day  he  entered  into  the  synagogue  and  taught.  And 
they  were  astonished  at  his  teaching  :  for  he  taught  them 
as  having  authority,  and  not  as  the  scribes. ' '    Mark  i.  21,22. 

"  And  he  saith  unto  them,  Let  us  go  elsewhere  into  the 
next  towns,  that  I  may  preach  there  also ;  for  to  this  end  came 
I  forth.  And  he  went  into  their  synagogues  throughout  all 
Galilee,  preaching  and  casting  out  devils."    Mark  i.  38,  39, 

'*  And  Jesus  saith  unto  him.  The  foxes  have  holes,  and 
the  birds  of  the  heaven  have  nests  ;  but  the  Son  of  man 
hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head."      Matthew  viii.  20. 

*'  And  Jesus  said  unto  him,  Why  callest  thou  me  good  .■* 
none  is  good  save  one,  even  God."      Mark  x.  18. 

"  Howbeit  I  must  go  on  my  way  to-day  and  to-morrow  and 
the  day  following  :  for  it  cannot  be  that  a  prophet  perish  out 
of  Jerusalem,  O  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem,  which  killeth  the 
prophets,  and  stoneth  them  that  are  sent  unto  her  !  how 
often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children  together,  even  as 
a  hen  gathereth  her  own  brood  under  her  wings,  and  ye 
would  not  !  "      Luke  xiii.  33,  34. 

"  And  he  stretched  forth  his  hand  towards  his  disciples, 
and  said.  Behold,  my  mother  and  my  brethren  !  For  whoso- 
ever shall  do  the  will  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven,  he 
is  my  brother,  and  sister,  and  mother."  Matthew  xii.  49,  50. 


CHAPTER   II 

THE    SON  :     THE     INCARNATION    OF     THE 
WAY 

To  disentangle  the  Father's  love  of 
all  his  children  from  the  conflicting 
evidence  of  human  perversity  and 
natural  accident,  as  Jesus  did  by  the 
spiritual  genius  of  his  soul,  is  a  task 
which  not  every  one  is  able  to  per- 
form for  himself  In  most  of  us  the 
mixture  of  good  and  evil  which  we 
see  without  is  reflected  in  a  similar 
mingling  of  good  and  bad  within. 
Hence  we  neither  get  by  purity  of 
heart  clear  assurance  of  God  for  our- 
selves,   nor   do   we   reveal    Him   to 


20  JESUS*    WAY 

others  by  purity  of  life.  Having  found 
God  in  his  own  soul,  Jesus'  great 
mission  was  to  reveal  Him  to  others, 
and  introduce  them  to  his  Way  of 
life,  in  which  they  would  find  God  for 
themselves. 

Born  of  a  mother  whose  pure  soul 
had  been  deeply  imbued  with  the 
spirit  of  Hebrew  prophecy  and  psalm, 
yet  whose  gentle  human  heart  found 
its  natural  expression  in  becoming  the 
mother  of  a  large  family  of  boys  and 
girls,  Jesus,  while  yet  a  boy,  on  his 
first  contact  with  the  Temple  teach- 
ers, felt  that  he  must  be  about  his 
Father's  business  of  showing  men  the 
Way. 

Yet,  at  the  very  beginning  of  his 
work,  he  found  the  popular  expecta- 
tions of  a  Messiah  who  should  recover 


THE   SON  21 

the  national  independence  by  the  use 
of  force,  and  head  a  popular  revolt, 
standing  directly  across  his  path.  He 
felt  a  growing  sense  that,  through  his 
sonship  to  the  Father  who  loves  us 
all,  he  was  the  true  Messiah,  foretold 
as  the  one  anointed  of  the  Lord  to 
preach  good  tidings  to  the  poor,  to 
proclaim  release  to  the  captives,  re- 
covering of  sight  to  the  blind,  liberty 
to  the  bruised,  and  the  acceptable  year 
of  the  Lord.  All  that  he  felt  prepared 
to  do.  But  this  appeal  to  force,  this 
leadership  of  revolt,  this  compromise 
with  popular  conceptions,  was  abhor- 
rent to  him.  Yet  how  could  he  ac- 
complish anything  alone  ?  How  could 
he  do  his  work  without  the  only  sup- 
port which  seemed  available?  At 
first  the  temptation  to  resort  to  phy- 


22  JESUS'    WAY 

sical,  political,  and  popular  devices 
for  the  establishment  of  his  Way  was 
very  strong ;  and  only  after  a  bitter 
and  protracted  struggle  did  he  put  it 
behind  him,  and  take  up  the  homeless 
life  of  an  itinerant  teacher. 

He  gathered  about  himself  twelve 
intimate  disciples ;  for  the  most  part 
plain  men  drawn  from  the  humblest 
walks  of  life.  At  times  he  drew  after 
him  considerable  crowds  from  Galilee, 
and  Decapolis,  and  Jerusalem,  and 
Judea,  and  from  beyond  Jordan; 
most  of  whom,  however,  were  loosely 
and  superficially  attached  to  him,  and 
easily  discouraged.  At  one  time  he 
was  able  to  send  out  as  many  as 
seventy  whom  he  deemed  competent 
and  trustworthy  teachers  of  his  Way. 

Through   the  faith    which  he  in- 


THE   SON  23 

spired,  and  by  virtue  of  psychical 
powers  which  he  possessed,  he  healed 
diseases,  cured  certain  forms  of  insan- 
ity, and  did  other  wonderful  things, 
which,  far  more  than  his  teaching, 
spread  his  fame  throughout  all  Syria. 
These  acts  of  kindness  and  mercy 
were  expressions  of  that  love  to  all 
which  he  felt  to  be  the  nature  of  his 
Father,  and  of  the  Way  in  which  all 
true  sons  of  the  Father  should  walk. 
Yet  Jesus  frequently  deprecated  as  an 
obstacle  to  the  inner  apprehension  of 
his  Way,  the  wonder-loving,  sight-see- 
ing throngs  which  the  fame  of  these 
signs  attracted. 

Though  occasionally  curious  to 
know  what  people  were  saying  about 
him,  Jesus  said  comparatively  little 
about  himself     His  favorite  title  was 


24  JESUS'    WAY 

The  Son  of  Man ;  though  he  did  not 
disclaim  the  title  Son  of  God.  He 
did  disclaim,  however,  any  unique 
and  ultimate  goodness,  ascribing  that 
to  God  alone.  Yet  so  perfect  was 
his  obedience  that  his  life  revealed 
the  Father's  goodness,  and  his  words 
declared  the  Father's  holy  will.  Je- 
sus translated  into  terms  of  human 
personality  the  very  lineaments  of 
the  Father's  nature.  Since  Jesus  has 
lived,  we  need  no  longer  to  discover, 
each  for  himself,  the  scattered  evi- 
dences of  the  divine  love  in  nature, 
in  other  men,  and  in  our  own  souls. 
Jesus  has  brought  these  scattered  rays 
of  the  divine  love  to  a  focus  in  his 
own  character  and  life ;  and  we  most 
easily  and  most  completely  gain  our 
knowledge  of  the  Father  through  his 


THE   SON  25 

reflection  in  the  Son.    For  in  the  Son 
the  Father  stands  revealed. 

As  this  ethical  sonship  is  different 
from  the  metaphysical,  theological 
sonship  of  the  ecclesiastical  creeds, 
the  evidence  on  which  it  rests  is  of  an 
entirely  different  character.  It  is  sim- 
ply a  question  of  the  adequacy  and 
supremacy  of  his  Way.  If  his  Way 
proves  to  be  a  mere  collection  and 
compilation  of  preceding  precepts ; 
if  he  teaches  like  the  scribes,  then  no 
attestation  of  miracles  and  marvels  can 
make  us  revere  him  as  the  unique 
Son  of  God.  If,  on  the  other  hand, 
his  doctrine  is  altogether  novel,  a  code 
dropped  supernaturally  from  the  sky, 
or  even  invented  by  his  own  ingenu- 
ity, he  thereby  forfeits  his  claim  to  be 
the  Son  of  the  Father  who  had  been 


26  JESUS'    WAY 

revealing  himself  to  all  his  thought- 
ful and  reverent  children,  and  declar- 
ing his  will  in  the  legislation  and 
institutions  of  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth. 

Now  Jesus'  Way  was  neither  old 
alone,  nor  new  alone ;  but  like  the 
treasure  of  the  householder,  both  old 
and  new.  All  that  was  permanently 
valuable,  to  the  last  jot  and  tittle,  in 
what  the  moral  experience  of  the  race 
had  laboriously  wrought  out  and 
enacted  into  custom  and  command- 
ment, he  reverently  conserved.  In 
the  details  of  his  teaching  there  is 
nothing  that  other  men  before  him 
had  not  discovered,  approved,  and 
proclaimed.  It  could  not  be  other- 
wise. For  there  can  be  but  one  best 
Way  of  life.     All  seeking  after  right- 


THE   SON  27 

eousness  is  an  approximation  to  this 
one  best  Way.  And  when  this  best 
Way  is  fully  revealed,  it  is  simply  the 
presentation  in  one  single  insight,  as  a 
comprehensive  whole,  of  all  the  vir- 
tues, duties,  laws,  institutions,  and 
ideals  which  human  experience  has 
discovered,  enacted,  sanctioned,  and 
adored.  The  proof  of  the  perfection 
of  his  Way,  and  of  his  own  Sonship 
to  God  as  the  incarnation  of  that  per- 
fect Way,  therefore,  is  purely  experi- 
mental. If  a  man  or  a  race,  either 
before  or  after  Jesus'  advent,  has  suc- 
ceeded in  striking  out  a  Way  essen- 
tially different  from  Jesus'  Way, 
which  is  at  the  same  time  superior  to 
it,  then  this  moral  discoverer,  this  eth- 
ically superior  race,  not  Jesus  and  the 
Jews,  must   be  accredited   with   the 


28  JESUS'   WAY 

title  of  Son  of  God,  and  bearer  of 
his  revelation. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  the  vast  major- 
ity of  individuals,  all  indeed  who  have 
had  the  requisite  experience  of  it,  and 
all  the  leading  races  to  whom  his  Way 
has  been  adequately  taught,  agree  that 
his  Way  is  the  summing  up  of  all 
that  is  best  in  the  efforts  of  men  and 
nations  after  righteousness;  and  that, 
although  it  is  capable  of  infinite  ex- 
pansion, and  application  to  details 
of  which  Jesus  never  dreamed,  yet 
beyond  or  above  its  essential  princi- 
ples it  is  impossible  for  experiment  to 
advance,  or  imagination  to  soar.  In 
its  range  of  application  it  is  infinite 
and  universal:  yet  in  its  reduction  of 
this  infinite  variety  of  applications  to 
the  single  principle  of  love  to  the  God 


THE   SON  29 

who  loves  his  whole  creation,  and 
every  human  child  according  to  his 
needs,  it  is  unique,  final,  unimprov- 
able, and  absolute. 

The  ethical  supremacy  of  his  Way 
is  the  evidence  that  Jesus  is  the  well- 
beloved  Son  of  God.  Consequently 
the  only  adequate  confession  of  him 
is,  as  he  tells  us,  implicit  obedience 
to  his  words,  and  faithful  following  of 
his  Way.  Because  his  own  Sonship 
is  ethical  and  spiritual,  rather  than 
metaphysical  and  theological,  it  there- 
fore follows  that  every  one  who  rever- 
ently walks  in  his  Way,  and  lovingly 
does  his  Father's  will,  becomes  thereby 
his  brother  and  sister  and  mother. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE    KINGDOM:     THE     SPIRIT     OF 
THE   WAY 


*•  Thy  kingdom  come."      Matthew  vi.  lo. 

**  But  seek  ye  first  his  kingdom,  and  his  righteousness  ; 
and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you,"  Matthew 
vi.  33-  . 

"  And  being  asked  by  the  Pharisees,  when  the  kingdom 
of  God  Cometh,  he  answered  them  and  said.  The  kingdom  of 
God  Cometh  not  with  observation  :  neither  shall  they  say, 
Lo,  here  !  or.  There  !  for  lo,  the  kingdom  of  God  is  within 
you."     Luke  xvii.  20,  21. 

**The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  leaven,  which  a 
woman  took,  and  hid  in  three  measures  of  meal,  till  it  was 
all  leavened."     Matthew  xiii.  33. 

*'  The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  like  unto  a  grain  of  mustard 
seed,  which  a  man  took,  and  sowed  in  his  field  :  which 
indeed  is  less  than  all  seeds  ;  but  when  it  is  grown,  it  is 
greater  than  the  herbs,  and  becometh  a  tree,  so  that  the 
birds  of  the  heaven  come  and  lodge  in  the  branches  thereof." 
Matthew  xiii,  31,  32. 

**  And  Jesus,  fiill  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  returned  from  the 
Jordan,  and  was  led  by  the  Spirit  in  the  wilderness  during  forty 
days,  being  tempted  of  the  devil."      Luke  iv.  i,  2, 

*'  In  that  same  hour  he  rejoiced  in  the  Holy  Spirit," 
Luke  X.  21. 

"If  ye  then,  being  evil,  know  how  to  give  good  gifts 
unto  your  children,  how  much  more  shall  your  heavenly 
Father  give  the  Holy  Spirit  to  them  that  ask  him  ? ' ' 
Luke  xi.  13. 

"  And  when  they  bring  you  before  the  synagogues,  and  the 
rulers,  and  the  authorities,  be  not  anxious  how  or  what  ye 
shall  answer,  or  what  ye  shall  say  :  for  the  Holy  Spirit  shall 
teach  you  in  that  very  hour  what  ye  ought  to  say."  Luke 
xii.  II,  12. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE     KINGDOM  :      THE     SPIRIT     OF     THE 
WAY 

To  discover  God  in  the  harmony  be- 
tween the  good  in  the  world  outside 
and  the  good  in  his  own  soul ;  even 
to  reveal  the  good  God  in  purity 
of  life  so  plainly  that  all  might  see 
the  nature  of  the  Father  incarnate  in 
the  Son,  was  but  the  beginning  of  the 
work  which  Jesus  came  to  do.  Had 
he  done  nothing  more  than  this,  he 
would  have  left  his  Way  very  im- 
perfectly revealed:  hanging  in  the 
air ;  hovering  as  a  mere  ideal  before 
the  minds  of  a  select  few.    He  sought 


34  JESUS'    WAY 

to  make  the  Way  of  the  Father  the 
Way  of  the  Son,  also  the  Way  of 
multitudes  of  common  men  and  wo- 
men in  whom  it  should  live  as  the 
Spirit  of  their  individual  and  corpo- 
rate life.  In  accomplishing  this,  Jesus 
performed  the  greatest  feat  of  teach- 
ing, and  achieved  the  grandest  success 
in  organization  and  administration, 
the  world  has  ever  seen.  Yet  Jesus 
took  no  credit  for  it  to  himself  The 
kingdom,  and  the  power,  and  the 
glory,  he  ascribed  to  God.  In  other 
words,  it  was  not  because  he  proclaimed 
it  so  clearly  and  persuasively;  it  was 
because  God  had  constituted  human 
nature  so  that  the  Way  of  love  to 
God  and  man  is  the  true  Way  of  life, 
that  the  community  of  those  who 
adopted   and   proclaimed   this    Way 


THE    KINGDOM  35 

were  able  to  become  the  mightiest 
social  and  spiritual  force  the  world  has 
ever  seen. 

The  kingdom  of  heaven  is  the 
community  of  those  who  walk  in 
Jesus'  Way.  In  Jesus'  teaching  the 
kingdom  is  sometimes  represented  in 
the  Messianic  terminology  of  the 
times;  sometimes  projected  into  the 
world  to  come.  But  the  fundamen- 
tal conception,  whether  it  be  regarded 
as  local  or  universal,  present  or  future, 
is  that  of  a  community  of  persons, 
bound  to  the  Father,  and  to  the  Son, 
and  to  each  other  by  a  common 
Spirit,  which  is  begotten  in  them  by 
walking  together  in  the  Way  which 
Jesus  exemplified  and  taught. 

What  manifests  itself  outwardly  as 
a  Way  of  life,  when  thought  of  in- 


36  JESUS*    WAY 

wardly  and  subjectively  is  the  Spirit 
that  animates  and  inspires  this  Way 
of  life.  Thus  Jesus  was  led  by  the 
Spirit  into  the  wilderness  to  meet  his 
temptation.  He  rejoiced  in  the  Spirit, 
when  he  thanked  his  Father  that  He 
had  been  pleased  to  make  his  reve- 
lation of  himself  to  babes.  The 
Holy  Spirit  is  the  best  gift  which  the 
Father  is  sure  to  give  to  all  those  who 
earnestly  ask  and  seek  and  knock. 
In  times  of  peril,  when  arrested  and 
brought  to  trial,  the  Holy  Spirit  shall 
teach  the  disciples  in  that  very  hour 
what  they  ought  to  say. 

If  we  think  of  the  Holy  Spirit  as 
the  life  and  will  of  the  Father,  repro- 
duced in  the  Son,  and  shared  by  all 
the  members  of  the  community  who 
follow  the   Son  in  the  doing  of  the 


THE    KINGDOM  37 

Father's  will,  all  these  passages  be- 
come clear  and  luminous.  It  is  the 
most  natural  thing  in  the  world  that 
Jesus  should  be  led  by  this  Spirit  to 
meet  his  temptation ;  and  that  in  this 
Spirit  he  should  rejoice.  It  is  also 
inevitable  that  God  should  give  this 
Holy  Spirit  to  those  who  earnestly 
and  prayerfully  seek  to  do  his  will ; 
and  that  this  same  Holy  Spirit  should 
teach  them  what  to  say  much  better 
than  their  own  devices. 

The  Synoptic  Gospels  teach  that 
the  will  of  the  Father  has  been  repro- 
duced and  revealed  in  the  Son:  and 
also  that  the  life  of  both  Father  and 
Son  has  been  imparted  to  a  commu- 
nity or  kingdom  of  true  sons  of  God 
and  followers  of  Jesus,  in  which  it 
dwells  as  the  Holy  Spirit  of  a  divine 


38  JESUS'    WAY 

life,  of  the  same  nature  as  the  life  of 
the  Father  and  the  Son  from  whom  it 
is  derived,  yet  distinctly  and  properly 
their  own.  The  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
inner  aspect  of  that  life  of  God  in  the 
hearts  of  men  of  which  the  kingdom 
of  God,  or  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  is 
the  outward  expression  and  visible 
embodiment. 


CHAPTER   IV 

FAITH;    THE    GRASP   OF   THE   WAY 


"  He  that  receiveth  you  receiveth  me,  and  he  that  re- 
ceiveth  me  receiveth  him  that  sent  me.  He  that  receiveth 
a  prophet  in  the  name  of  a  prophet  shall  receive  a  prophet's 
reward  j  and  he  that  receiveth  a  righteous  man  in  the  name 
of  a  righteous  man  shall  receive  a  righteous  man's  reward." 
Matthew  x.  40,  41. 

'*  And  when  ye  pray,  ye  shall  not  be  as  the  hypocrites  : 
for  they  love  to  stand  and  pray  in  the  synagogues  and  in  the 
comers  of  the  streets,  that  they  may  be  seen  of  men.  Verily 
I  say  unto  you,  They  have  received  their  reward.  But 
thou,  when  thou  prayest,  enter  into  thine  inner  chamber, 
and  having  shut  thy  door,  pray  to  thy  Father  which  is  in 
secret,  and  thy  Father  which  seeth  in  secret  shall  recom- 
pense thee.  And  in  praying  use  not  vain  repetitions,  as  the 
Gentiles  do  :  for  they  think  that  they  shall  be  heard  for 
their  much  speaking.  Be  not  therefore  like  unto  them  :  for 
your  Father  knoweth  what  things  ye  have  need  of,  before 
ye  ask  him."     Matthew  vi.  5-8. 

**  Ask,  and  it  shall  be  given  you  ;  seek,  and  ye  shall  find  ; 
knock,  and  it  shall  be  opened  unto  you.  For  every  one  that 
asketh  receiveth  j  and  he  that  seeketh  findeth  ;  and  to  him 
that  knocketh  it  shall  be  opened."     Lukexi.  9,  10. 

*'  And  shall  not  God  avenge  his  elect,  which  cry  to  him 
day  and  night,  and  he  is  longsufFering  over  them  ?  I  say 
unto  you,  that  he  will  avenge  them  speedily.  Howbeit 
when  the  Son  of  man  cometh,  shall  he  find  faith  on  the 
earth  ?  "     Luke  xviii.  7,  8. 

**  If  ye  have  faith  as  a  grain  of  mustard  seed,  ye  shall  say 
unto  this  mountain.  Remove  hence  to  yonder  place  ;  and 
it  shall  remove  j  and  nothing  shall  be  impossible  unto  you." 
Matthew  xvii.  20. 

"  Nevertheless  not  my  will,  but  thine,  be  done."  Luke 
xxii.  42. 


CHAPTER   IV 

FAITH  :    THE    GRASP    OF    THE    WAY 

Psychology  is  telling  us  that  all  our 
interpretation  of  personal  life  is  either 
ejective  or  projective  ;  either  explain- 
ing the  ways  of  others  in  terms  of 
our  own  experience,  or  imitatively 
reproducing  the  ways  of  others  in 
experiments  of  our  own.  The  latter 
process  is  by  far  the  more  fundamen- 
tal and  instructive,  and  is  precisely 
what  Jesus  meant  by  faith.  Faith  is 
the  recognition  of  a  goodness  outside 
us,  in  the  Father,  in  the  Son,  or  in 
the  spiritual  life  of  Christian  men  and 
women  whom  we  know,  unattained 


42  JESUS'   WAY 

by  us,  yet  adorable,  imitable,  and 
through  adoration  and  imitation  pro- 
gressively attainable.  The  ejective 
attitude  of  the  big  boy  showing  off 
his  accomplishments,  and  perfectly 
comprehending  the  little  brother  as 
an  inferior  reproduction  of  his  own 
superior  attainments,  is  arrogant,  con- 
ceited, and  followed  exclusively  would 
make  one  a  brute  and  a  bully.  The 
projective  attitude,  on  the  contrary, 
or  the  attitude  of  faith,  is  preeminently 
meek,  modest,  humble,  teachable, 
childlike  ;  ready  to  believe  that  there 
is  a  Way  of  life  better  than  one's 
natural  reactions,  quick  to  admire  and 
reverence  that  better  Way  in  others, 
and  willing  to  try  whatever  imitative 
experiments  give  promise  of  making 
that  better  Way  one's  own.     He  who 


FAITH  43 

will  throw  himself  out  toward  another 
in  adoration  and  imitation  must  be 
modest  about  his  own  attainments. 
That  is  why  Jesus  insisted  on  hu- 
mility as  the  condition  of  the  appre- 
hension of  his  Way.  For  without 
humility,  faith,  or  the  imitative  repro- 
duction of  another's  experience,  is 
unattainable.  And  without  such  self- 
projection  into  the  superior  experience 
of  another,  spiritual  growth  and  life  is 
obviously  impossible. 

While  the  ultimate  object  of  Faith 
is  the  Father,  and  the  perfect  work- 
ing of  his  holy  will,  yet,  since  Jesus 
has  translated  that  perfect  will  into 
the  limitations  of  our  human  lives,  it 
is  much  easier  for  us  to  project  our- 
selves into  his  experience  than  to  aim 
directly  at  the  vast,  and  to  our  feeble 


44  JESUS*    WAY 

imaginations  vague  experience  of 
God.  Since  Jesus  was  the  true  Son, 
faith  in  him,  the  aspiration  to  be  Hke 
him,  comes  to  the  same  thing  as  aspi- 
ration to  be  Hke  God,  or  faith  in  God. 
"  He  that  receiveth  me,"  he  says,  "  re- 
ceiveth  him  that  sent  me." 

This  truth,  in  words  at  least,  the 
church  has  generally  accepted  as  an 
obvious  corollary  of  its  acceptance 
of  Jesus  as  the  Son  of  God.  There 
is  another  truth  which  goes  with  it, 
and  is  an  equally  obvious  corollary 
of  any  rational  and  worthy  doctrine 
of  the  Holy  Spirit,  which  Jesus  states 
with  equal  explicitness,  but  which  his 
followers  too  often  have  forgotten  or 
explained  away. 

Admiration  and  imitative  appropria- 
tion of  a  good  man  or  woman,  for  the 


FAITH  45 

sake  of  the  goodness  they  embody, 
is  appreciation  and  appropriation  of 
Jesus,  and  of  the  heavenly  Father. 
For  if  it  be  genuine  goodness  in  the 
friend  whom  I  admire  and  strive  to 
be  Hke,  that  goodness  of  his  is  not 
something  different  from  the  goodness 
of  Jesus  and  the  goodness  of  God. 
Goodness  is  one,  whether  in  the  Fa- 
ther, in  the  Son,  or  in  the  Holy  Spirit 
which  animates  the  lives  of  Chris- 
tian men  and  women.  Hence,  a  godly 
father,  a  sainted  mother,  a  devoted 
teacher,  a  faithful  Christian  friend, 
is  the  most  obvious  and  immediate 
object  of  our  faith:  through  admir- 
ing imitation  of  the  Way  in  them, 
we  approach  the  perfect  expression 
of  the  Way  in  Jesus,  and  as  Plato 
in  a  famous  passage  teaches,  ascend 


46  JESUS'    WAY 

on  this  ladder  of  created  souls  to  the 
ultimate  goodness  as  it  is  in  God. 

Startling  as  this  teaching  sounds  in 
our  modern  ears,  it  was  the  power 
by  which  the  early  church  conquered 
the  world.  Sacramentalism  and  sacer- 
dotalism are  poor,  pale  counterfeits, 
almost  caricatures,  of  this  tremendous 
truth,  that  the  goodness  of  good  men 
and  women  is  off  the  same  piece  as 
the  goodness  of  Jesus,  and  is  a  genu- 
ine aspect  of  the  goodness  of  God ; 
and  therefore  a  legitimate  and  valid 
object  for  the  faith  or  projective  ap- 
propriation of  other  men  to  lay  hold 
of,  and  grow  into,  and  make  the  step- 
ping-stone of  their  salvation.  To  con- 
ceal this  truth  under  some  rite,  or 
confine  it  to  some  official,  is  to  rob 
the  modern  church  of  the  chief  source 


FAITH  47 

of  the  primitive  Christian  commu- 
nity's persuasiveness  and  power.  For- 
tunately, however,  this  truth  is  so 
great  that  the  ingenuous  perversity  of 
men  cannot  hide  it ;  and  under  what- 
ever forms,  ceremonies,  and  doctrines 
the  various  ecclesiastical  organizations 
have  adopted,  the  saving  grace  of  God, 
in  which  plain  men  and  women  have 
believed  to  their  salvation,  has  always 
been  interpreted  by  the  sweet  and 
simple  Christian  lives  of  upright  men 
and  gentle  women,  devout  priests  and 
faithful  pastors,  sincere  teachers  and 
generous  friends,  in  and  through  whom 
Jesus'  Way  has  found  its  local,  tem- 
poral, and  individual  expression. 

Once  started  through  some  human 
agency,  faith  tends  more  and  more  to 
lay  hold  directly  of  the  perfect  char- 


48  JESUS'   WAY 

acter  of  Jesus,  and  the  ultimate  good- 
ness of  God.  For,  strange  as  it  seems 
to  the  uninitiated,  God  is  more  acces- 
sible to  the  approach  of  faith  than  is 
our  nearest  and  dearest  friend.  The 
expression  of  this  approach  of  faith  to 
the  Father  is  prayer. 

Prayer  is  the  aspiration  to  be  like 
God;  the  expression  of  willingness 
that  God  should  make  one  like  him- 
self Its  first  and  foremost  petition 
is  that  the  Father's  perfect  goodness 
may  be  a  hallowed  and  hallowing 
presence  in  the  soul.  Next  comes  the 
desire  that  the  community'  of  those 
who  know  and  love  Him  may  be 
extended  in  the  world ;  and  that  his 
goodwill  may  be  done  on  earth  even 
as  it  is  where  his  love  reigns  supreme. 
With   this    goes   the   willingness   to 


FAITH  49 

gratefully  accept  the  satisfaction  of  our 
daily  needs  as  a  gift  from  his  benefi- 
cence. Petitions  for  forgiveness  of  our 
sins,  restraint  from  temptation,  and 
deliverance  from  evil  follow  to  com- 
plete the  expression  of  the  faithful 
soul's  desires. 

Prayer  which  is  thus  born  of  faith, 
and  is  simply  the  child's  grasp  of  the 
Father's  hand  for  guidance  and  sup- 
port, is  an  entirely  different  thing 
from  that  mechanical  and  ostentatious 
saying  of  prayers  which  seeks  to  curry 
favor  with  God,  or  gain  a  reputation 
for  piety  with  men,  by  performing 
prayer,  like  fasting  or  almsgiving,  as  a 
meritorious  act.  Such  prayers  merely 
blind  and  harden  and  stultify  the  soul 
that  resorts  to  them.  Proceeding  on 
a  false  idea   of  God,  as  a  Being  to 


50  JESUS'   WAY 

be  conciliated  and  won  over  by  meri- 
torious performances,  they  miss  that 
union  of  what  is  best  in  us  with  the 
Father  who  is  its  source,  which  is  the 
true  reward  and  answer  to  prayer.  The 
less  a  man  says  about  his  prayers,  the 
less  conscious  he  is  of  doing  anything 
specially  meritorious  in  his  worship : 
the  more  spontaneous  and  secret  and 
natural  and  unconventional  it  is,  the 
better. 

While  Jesus  warns  us  against  all 
formalism,  ostentation,  and  insincerity 
in  prayer,  yet  he  enjoins  constancy 
and  even  importunity  in  prayer  as 
the  very  secret  of  the  soul's  life  and 
growth.  No  great  work  can  be  done 
without  it.  For  prayer  keeps  ideal 
and  motor  process  in  vital  contact; 
member  and  kingdom  in  living  touch; 


FAITH  51 

child  and  Father  in  close  companion- 
ship. Like  faith,  of  which  it  is  the 
emotional  and  personal  expression, 
prayer  keeps  the  love  and  will  of  the 
Father,  as  interpreted  by  Jesus  and 
embodied  in  the  Spirit  of  the  commu- 
nity, in  the  position  of  a  controlling 
ideal  and  motive  of  conduct.  Conse- 
quently, the  man  who  truly  lives  a 
life  of  prayer  comes  to  partake  of  the 
divine  omnipotence ;  and  a  group  of 
persons  bound  together  by  such  a 
common  recognition  of  the  Father's 
love  and  will  become,  for  the  accom- 
plishment of  any  purpose  that  is  in 
accordance  with  his  will,  practically 
irresistible. 

Though  one's  natural  desires,  as  for 
daily  bread,  and  for  deliverance  from 
trial  and  temptation,  may  rightly  enter 


52  JESUS'   WAY 

into  one's  communion  with  the  Father, 
yet  we  do  not  get  the  complete  union 
of  ourselves  with  Him,  which  is  the 
end  and  essence  of  prayer,  until  all  these 
partial,  transitory  desires  of  ours  are 
overruled  by  the  crowning  desire,  ex- 
pressed in  Jesus'  prayer  in  the  Garden 
of  Gethsemane  :  "  Nevertheless,  not 
my  will,  but  thine  be  done."  In  short, 
prayer  is  not  a  device  for  getting  God 
to  do  our  will,  in  so  far  as  our  will  dif- 
fers from  his ;  but  it  is  an  indispen- 
sable and  invaluable  means  of  getting 
his  will  done  in  and  through  us,  when 
our  wills  desire  to  be  one  with  his 
will,  but  are  all  too  weak  and  unsteady 
to  accomplish  alone  what  He  can 
make  them  strong  to  do.  An  ideal 
allowed  to  drift  out  of  consciousness 
is  as  impotent  as  an  electric  car  cut 


FAITH  53 

off  from  the  power  station.  An  ideal 
present  in  consciousness  is  as  potent 
over  life,  and  the  world  which  human 
life  affects,  as  is  a  dynamo  over  the 
movements  of  a  connected  car.  Prayer 
is  the  making  and  maintaining  of 
spiritual  connections  between  the  in- 
dividual soul  and  the  great  motive 
power  of  the  goodness  and  love  of 
God.  That  its  answer  comes  chiefly 
through  the  medium  of  one's  own 
steadiness  and  strength  of  purpose,  and 
the  cooperation  of  other  human  wills, 
is  no  more  a  denial  of  its  reality  and 
worth  than  is  the  intervention  of  a 
wire  a  denial  of  the  direct  and  com- 
plete dependence  of  the  car  upon  the 
power  station  for  its  motion.  Word- 
less prayer,  on  the  other  hand,  is  as 
genuine  a  reality  as  wireless  telegraphy. 


54  JESUS'   WAY 

All  this,  however,  Jesus  no  more  rea- 
soned out  than  he  did  the  existence 
of  God.  He  simply  practiced  it;  and 
found,  as  everybody  does,  that  with 
this  constant  communion  with  the 
Father's  loving  will  one  can  do  any- 
thing in  the  world  he  then  desires  to 
do  ;  and  that  without  such  commu- 
nion one's  spiritual  aspirations  fade 
away,  and  one's  spiritual  achievements 
come  to  naught. 


CHAPTER  V 

REPENTANCE  :  THE  ENTRANCE   TO 
THE  WAY 


"  And  one  saki  unto  him,  Lord,  are  they  few  that  be 
saved  ?  And  he  said  unto  them,  Strive  to  enter  in  by  the 
narrow  door  :  for  many,  I  say  unto  you,  shall  seek  to  enter 
in,  and  shall  notbe  able."     Luke  xiii.  23,  24. 

*'  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  Except  ye  turn,  and  become  as 
Ettle  children,  ye  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into  the  kingdom  of 
heaven."      Matthew  xviii.  3. 

"  Not  every  one  that  saith  unto  me,  Lord,  Lord,  shall 
enter  into  the  kingdom  of  heaven ;  but  he  that  doeth  the 
wiE  of  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven."     Matthew  viL  21. 

**  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laden, 
and  I  win  give  you  rest.  Take  my  yoke  upon  you,  and 
learn  of  me ;  for  I  am  meek  and  lowly  in  heart :  and  ye 
shall  find  rest  unto  your  souls.  For  my  yoke  is  easy,  and 
my  burden  is  light."     Matthew  xi.  28-30. 

<'  No  man,  having  put  his  hand  to  the  plough,  and  look- 
ing back,  is  fit  for  the  kingdom  of  God."     Luke  ii.  62. 

*•  Whosoever  would  become  great  among  you  shall  be 
your  minijayr  j  and  whosoever  would  be  first  among  you 
shall  be  your  servant  :  even  as  the  Son  of  man  came  not  to 
be  mini^ered  unto,  but  to  minister,  and  to  give  his  life  a 
ransom  for  many."     Matthew  rr.  26—28. 

"  Why  beholdest  thou  the  mote  that  is  in  thy  brother's 
ere,  but  considerest  not  the  beam  that  is  in  thine  own  eye  ?  '* 
M^thew  vii.  3. 

*'  Take  heed,  and  keep  yourselves  from  all  covetousness  : 
for  a  man's  life  consisteth  not  in  the  abundance  of  the  things 
which  he  possesseth."     Luke  xii.  15. 

**  If  thy  hand  or  thy  foot  causeth  thee  to  stumble,  cut  it 
off^  and  cast  it  from  thee  :  it  b  good  for  thee  to  enter  into 
life  maimed  or  halt,  rather  than  having  two  hands  or  two 
feet  to  be  cast  into  the  eternal  fire."    Matthew  xviii.  8. 

"  Then  saith  he  to  his  servants.  The  wedding  is  ready, 
but  they  that  were  bidden  were  not  worthy.  For  many  are 
called,  but  few  chosen."     Matthew  xxii.  8,  14. 


CHAPTER  V 

REPENTANCE  :     THE    ENTRANCE     TO    THE 
WAY 

When  once  seen  by  the  pure  eye  of 
faith,  Jesus'  Way  of  love  to  all,  even 
as  the  Father  loves,  in  a  community 
of  mutual  service  like  that  which  Jesus 
himself  manifested  and  inspired  in  his 
immediate  followers,  is  something  so 
different  from  the  natural  way  of  self- 
seeking,  so  superior  to  what  we  all  do 
when  we  act  out  our  animal  appetites 
and  passions,  and  seek  our  selfish  ends 
and  aims,  that  no  one  can  enter  this 
Way  without  a  radical  change.  A 
new  Way  of  life  involves  as  a  matter 


58  JESUS'   WAY 

of  course  a  new  attitude  of  mind  and 
heart.  The  invitation  is  to  all :  to  the 
merchant  in  spite  of  the  importance 
of  his  business ;  to  the  sinner,  because 
of  his  greater  need ;  to  those  who  are 
dissatisfied  with  themselves,  because 
of  the  assured  satisfaction  the  kingdom 
will  afford;  to  the  weary  and  heavy- 
laden,  because  the  burden  of  service 
and  the  yoke  of  love  which  Jesus  puts 
on  all  who  enter  the  kingdom  is 
lighter  far  than  the  burdens  of  social 
ambition  and  the  yokes  of  selfish  ends; 
and  this  lighter  and  easier  task  of  sim- 
ply doing  one's  best  in  the  loving  ser- 
vice of  all  will  bring  to  these  weary  and 
heavy-laden  souls  the  rest  they  crave. 
Yet  of  the  many  called  compara- 
tively few  are  chosen.  For  the  Way 
of  love  is  narrow,  and  few  there  be 


REPENTANCE  59 

that  find  it.  Children,  on  whom  the 
heart-hardening  processes  of  self-seek- 
ing have  not  yet  laid  hold,  and  sin- 
ners conscious  of  their  guilt  and  ill 
desert  find  the  entrance  to  the  Way 
most  readily.  For  humility  is  nat- 
ural to  the  child,  and  others'  con- 
demnation has  brought  the  flagrant 
sinner  to  a  point  where  his  need  of 
forgiveness  and  a  new  start  is  obvious. 
There  is  no  room  in  the  kingdom, 
no  place  in  the  Way,  for  pride,  sensu- 
ality, selfishness,  meanness,  cowardice, 
hypocrisy.  Whoever  tries  to  carry 
any  of  these  things  in  the  Way  sim- 
ply shuts  himself  out  of  it.  It  is  too 
narrow  to  admit  one  swollen  out  and 
loaded  down  with  these  excrescences 
and  incumbrances.  The  man  who 
thinks    himself   better    than    others 


6o  JESUS'    WAY 

thereby  shows  his  own  fundamental 
lack  of  the  Spirit  of  universal  kindU- 
ness  and  gentleness  which  is  the  es- 
sence of  the  Way.  He  who  is  first  in 
his  own  conceit  is  last  in  genuine  appre- 
ciation and  love  for  others,  and  there- 
fore last  in  the  Way.  He  who  seeks 
distinction  and  preeminence  rather 
than  usefulness  and  service  thereby 
confesses  his  fitness  for  only  the  lowest 
seat,  if  indeed  he  be  fit  for  any  seat  at 
all  at  the  feast  of  the  Lord  of  love. 
He  that  exalteth  himself  by  that  very 
act  decrees  his  own  abasement.  The 
intensity  of  one's  devotion  is  limited. 
The  more  he  bestows  on  himself,  the 
less  he  has  left  for  the  Father  and  his 
fellows.  By  the  latter,  not  the  former, 
he  gets  his  station  in  the  Way,  his 
rating  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


REPENTANCE  6i 

The  desire  to  be  waited  on  and 
served,  unless  it  be  merely  incidental 
to  a  larger  service  of  one's  own,  is  a 
mark  of  unfitness  for  admission  to  the 
Way.  All  attempts  to  live  at  other 
people's  expense,  by  fraud  or  dishon- 
esty, by  influence  or  favor,  by  riches 
or  power,  are  a  denial  of  the  Spirit  of 
the  Way,  and  involve,  as  a  matter  of 
course,  exclusion  from  it.  Here  lies 
the  peril  of  wealth.  If  it  makes  a  man 
centre  his  affection  on  what  he  can  get 
rather  than  what  he  can  give;  on 
being  served  rather  than  serving ;  on 
material  enjoyment  rather  than  spirit- 
ual exercise ;  on  the  lust  of  the  flesh 
instead  of  the  love  of  the  spirit, — then 
his  riches,  because  they  take  the  love 
out  of  his  heart,  take  the  man  out  of 
Jesus'  Way  and  exclude   him  from 


62  JESUS'    WAY 

the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Yet  riches 
are  not  an  insuperable  obstacle  to  one's 
entrance  to  the  Way.  Indeed,  they 
may  be  a  help.  If  used  as  an  instru- 
ment of  service  and  an  expression  of 
love  to  the  Father,  and  to  his  children 
according  to  their  need,  the  steward- 
ship of  v^ealth,  whether  in  effective  in- 
dustrial management,  or  in  judicious 
charities,  may  become,  as  indeed  it  is 
in  multitudes  of  Christian  men  to-day, 
one  of  the  highest  and  noblest  mani- 
festations of  that  loving  service  of 
God  and  all  his  children  in  which  the 
Way  consists. 

What  is  true  of  wealth  is  true  of 
station,  reputation,  power,  influence, 
ability.  Sought  as  ends  in  themselves 
they  draw  one's  affections  away  from 
that  love  of  God  and  our  fellow  men 


REPENTANCE  63 

which  is  Jesus'  Way.  Used  for  the 
service  of  the  kingdom,  they  add 
enormously  to  one's  efficiency  in  the 
Way;  so  that  the  neglect  to  develop 
and  use  them  to  their  full  capacity 
would,  as  also  in  the  case  of  wealth, 
be  an  evidence  of  lack  of  love,  and 
a  just  ground  of  exclusion  from  the 
kingdom. 

Censoriousness,  harsh  judgment  of 
others,  a  disposition  to  get  something 
for  one's  self  which  the  less  deserving 
cannot  share,  since  these  are  not  the 
manifestations  of  love,  are  sure  marks 
of  one's  own  exclusion  from  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  People,  like  the  elder 
brother,  who  measure  their  own  right- 
eousness by  the  standard  of  their  bro- 
ther's failings,  have  in  reality  very 
little   righteousness   to    measure   any 


64  JESUS'    WAY 

way.  For  the  root  of  righteousness  is 
love;  and  where  love,  even  to  the 
outcast  and  the  prodigal,  the  sinner 
and  the  criminal,  is  wanting,  it  is  but 
a  hard,  dry  shell  of  legality,  not  the 
warm  heart  of  genuine  righteousness 
that  remains.  Out  of  such  selfish, 
censorious,  cold,  conceited  creatures  as 
this  elder  brother  and  his  whole  tribe 
of  Pharisees  and  self-styled  saints,  even 
the  Almighty  could  not  make  a  warm, 
genial,  generous,  happy  heaven  if  He 
tried. 

Sensuality  on  the  same  principle 
excludes  one  from  the  Way;  not  on 
the  false  ascetic  ground  that  sensuous 
pleasure  is  bad;  but  simply  because 
one  cannot  serve  two  masters ;  because 
sensuous  pleasure  often  conflicts  with 
that  true  regard  for  one's  own  welfare 


REPENTANCE  65 

and  the  welfare  of  others  which  is  the 
substance  of  the  Way.  Jesus  never 
condemned  sensuous  pleasure  as  such. 
In  all  his  warnings  there  is  the  saying, 
"  If  thine  eye  offend,  pluck  it  out." 
He  never  says  that  a  maimed  life  is 
good  in  itself,  or  preferable  to  a  whole 
life,  in  which  every  appetite  and  pas- 
sion has  its  appropriate  action  and 
fruition.  He  simply  says,  what  every 
sound  ethical  system  from  Plato  and 
Aristotle  to  the  present  day  affirms, 
that  when  the  part  conflicts  with  the 
whole,  when  the  member  interferes 
with  the  organism,  when  the  passing 
indulgence  is  fatal  to  the  permanent 
interest  of  the  self  as  a  whole,  then 
the  appetite  or  passion  must  be  re- 
pressed. The  strait  gate  of  love  to 
others  excludes  many  an  indulgence 


66  JESUS'    WAY 

which  selfish  passion  prompts.  That 
is  why  the  readiness  to  pluck  out  the 
eye  or  cut  off  the  hand  is  a  condition 
of  admission  to  the  Way.  Such  tem- 
perance is  the  price  love  has  to  pay  for 
being  consistent  with  itself,  and  true  to 
those  who  are  its  objects.  To  gratify 
each  appetite,  so  far  as  is  consistent 
with  that  universal  love  which  is  the 
spirit  of  the  Way,  is  the  Christian 
ideal.  But  to  leave  this  or  that  par- 
ticular desire  ungratified  is  far  better 
than,  through  sacrificing  some  other 
person's  welfare  or  happiness  to  a  self- 
ish passion,  to  fail  to  truly  love  that 
person,  and  so  fall  altogether  out  of 
Jesus'  Way. 

There  is  no  asceticism  about  Jesus' 
Way.  To  be  sure,  all  lesser  goods 
must   be  remorselessly  cut  off  when 


REPENTANCE  67 

they  conflict  with  the  supreme  claim 
of  love  :  and  this  often  gives  the  Way 
an  ascetic  aspect  in  the  eyes  of  those 
who  see  the  lesser  good  denied,  and 
cannot  see  or  appreciate  the  larger 
love  affirmed.  Jesus  never  asks  us  to 
cut  off  any  natural  appetites  unless 
they  offend :  unless,  that  is,  they  put  us 
in  false  and  harmful  relations  to  oth- 
ers. For  every  physical  pleasure  fore- 
gone, the  follower  of  his  Way  cannot 
fail  to  secure  a  greater  spiritual  good. 
Healthy  natural  appetites  are  not  bad ; 
nor  are  they  to  be  brooded  over  in 
morbid  introspection  and  self-condem- 
nation. They  all  have  uses  essential 
to  the  individual  and  the  race.  They 
become  bad  only  when  they  lead  us 
to  treat  others  as  we  would  not  be 
willing  to  be  treated  if  we  were  in  their 


68  JESUS'    WAY 

place, — as  we  would  not  wish  one 
dear  to  us  to  be  treated  by  another. 
Lack  of  love  in  this  plain,  practical 
sense  of  the  word  is  the  only  sin  ;  and 
natural  appetites  and  passions  become 
sinful  only  when  they  lead  us  to  sac- 
rifice ourselves  or  others  to  merely 
transient  and  sensual  ends,  at  cost  of 
permanent  purity  and  peace.  To  be 
sure,  Jesus  does  mention  incidentally 
the  truth,  which  physiology  knows 
well,  that  intense  and  protracted  devo- 
tion to  such  ideal  interests  as  those  to 
which  his  Way  leads  ultimately  tends 
with  years  and  maturity  to  abate,  if 
not  to  extinguish,  the  fires  of  even 
harmless  and  innocent  physical  appe- 
tites ;  on  the  principle  that  the  heart 
follows  its  treasure.  But  this  is  a 
counsel  of  perfection  expressly  directed 


REPENTANCE  69 

to  those  who  are  able  to  bear  it ;  and 
on  no  account  to  be  made  a  pretext 
for  morbid  worrying  about  the  natural 
appetites  and  passions  with  which  the 
good  Creator  has  liberally  endowed 
all  healthy  persons. 

No  one  who  hears  and  understands 
the  invitation  to  this  Way  can  safely 
postpone  acceptance.  To  postpone  ac- 
ceptance is  virtually  to  decline.  For 
one  who  can  feel  the  Father's  love 
for  him  and  for  all,  and  admire  that 
love  in  the  life  of  Jesus  and  his  fol- 
lowers, and  still  can  look  back  long- 
ingly to  the  old  life  of  selfishness, 
or  count  his  domestic  affairs  or  his 
merchandise  of  more  consequence, 
is  incapable  of  that  high  loyalty,  that 
perfect  self-devotion,  which  the  Way 
demands.     He  is  not  fit  for  the  king- 


70  JESUS'    WAY 

dom  of  heaven.  Even  while  he  de- 
liberates, his  heart  is  hardening,  and 
erelong  it  will  be  fest  closed  against 
the  appeal  of  the  love  he  has  thus  pre- 
sumed to  slight  and  stifle.  Obstinate 
jefusal  to  cooperate  with  others  in  such 
expression  of  the  life  of  love  to  God 
and  man  as  the  times  and  circum- 
stances have  established  may  indicate 
such  a  self-centred  hardness  of  heart 
as  rightly  to  exclude  from  the  feast 
one  who  deliberately  refuses  to  grace 
it  with  a  wedding  garment.  Yet  the 
garment  itself,  whether  it  be  rite  or 
ceremony,  creed  or  profession,  is  worse 
than  worthless  if  it  be  used  as  a  cloak 
to  cover  any  lack  of  that  love  to  all 
which  is  God's  life  in  us,  and  therefore 
the  true  and  only  Way.  Of  all  the 
leaven  men  have  mixed,  that  of  hy- 


REPENTANCE  71 

pocrisy  is  the  least  consistent  with  the 
Way.  Except  one's  righteousness  go 
deeper  than  creed  or  ritual  or  profes- 
sion, to  the  love  which  should  inspire 
them  all,  he  shall  in  no  wise  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven. 


CHAPTER  VI 

FORGIVENESS  :    THE    RESTORATION 
TO  THE   WAY 


'*  And  whensoever  ye  stand  praying,  forgive,  if  ye  have 
aught  against  any  one  ;  that  your  Father  also  which  is  in 
heaven  may  forgive  you  your  trespasses."      Mark  xi.  25. 

*'  Then  came  Peter,  and  said  to  him.  Lord,  how  oft  shall 
my  brother  sin  against  me,  and  I  forgive  him  ?  until  seven 
times  ?  Jesus  saith  unto  him,  I  say  not  unto  thee,  Until 
seven  times  j  but,  Until  seventy  times  seven."  Matthew 
xviii,  21,  22, 

"  Then  his  lord  called  him  unto  him,  and  saith  to  him, 
Thou  wicked  servant,  I  forgave  thee  all  that  debt,  because 
thou  besoughtest  me  :  shouldest  not  thou  also  have  had 
mercy  on  thy  fellow-servant,  even  as  I  had  mercy  on  thee  ? 
And  his  lord  was  wroth,  and  delivered  him  to  the  tormentors, 
till  he  should  pay  all  that  was  due.  So  shall  also  my  hea- 
venly Father  do  unto  you,  if  ye  forgive  not  every  one  his 
brother  from  your  hearts. "      Matthew  xviii.  32-35. 

*<  And  the  scribes  of  the  Pharisees,  when  they  saw  that 
he  was  eating  with  the  sinners  and  publicans,  said  unto  his 
disciples.  He  eateth  and  drinketh  with  publicans  and  sinners. 
And  when  Jesus  heard  it,  he  saith  unto  them.  They  that  are 
whole  have  no  need  of  a  physician,  but  they  that  are  sick  : 
I  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners."  Mark  ii. 
16,  17. 

' '  And  Jesus  said.  Father,  forgive  them  j  for  they  know 
not  what  they  do."      Luke  xxiii.  34. 

"  And  turning  to  the  woman,  he  said  unto  Simon,  Seest 
thou  this  woman  ?  I  entered  into  thine  house,  thou  gavest 
me  no  water  for  my  feet :  but  she  hath  wetted  my  feet 
with  her  tears,  and  wiped  them  with  her  hair.  Thou  gavest 
me  no  kiss  :  but  she,  since  the  time  I  came  in,  hath  not 
ceased  to  kiss  my  feet.  My  head  with  oil  thou  didst  not 
anoint :  but  she  hath  anointed  my  feet  with  ointment. 
Wherefore  I  say  unto  thee.  Her  sins,  which  are  many,  are 
forgiven  ;  for  she  loved  much  :  but  to  whom  little  is  forgiven, 
the  same  loveth  little.  And  he  said  unto  her,  Thy  sins 
are  forgiven."     Luke  vii.  44-48. 


CHAPTER  VI 

forgiveness:    the    restoration    to 

THE    WAY 

Once  admitted  to  the  Way,  once 
knowing  the  joy  of  letting  the  Father's 
love  for  all  our  fellows  flow  through 
our  own  hearts  and  lives,  nothing,  not 
even  our  own  sins  and  lapses,  if  we 
promptly  repent  of  them,  can  ever 
keep  us  out  of  it.  For  whoever  has 
once  entered  the  Way  knows  that  so 
long  as  he  was  in  it,  so  long,  that  is, 
as  he  lived  the  life  of  love,  he  never 
felt  aught  but  pity  for  those  who  were 
outside  of  it ;  never  could  help  forgiv- 
ing an  offending  brother  the  moment 


76  JESUS'    WAY 

he  repented  and  asked  to  be  forgiven. 
Now  that  forgiveness  which  we  show 
to  our  brother,  Jesus  says  is  the  sure, 
experimental  proof  which  every  Chris- 
tian has  that  the  Father  forgives  his 
sins  whenever  he  goes  astray  and 
returns  in  genuine  penitence.  This 
proof  is  sufficient.  There  can  be  no 
other  proof  A  Christian  who  did  not 
forgive  his  brother  would  not  be  a 
Christian.  And  even  if  such  a  Chris- 
tianity were  possible,  it  would  have 
no  assurance  of  the  Father's  forgive- 
ness. It  is  the  glory  of  Christianity 
that  it  tells  us  we  know  just  so  much 
of  God  as  we  reproduce  in  ourselves, 
or  trust  in  others  who,  like  Jesus,  have 
reproduced  his  nature  and  done  his 
Will.  It  is  a  revealed  religion.  It  is 
an  incarnation.   All  of  which  means 


FORGIVENESS  77 

that  we  interpret  and  appreciate  God 
by  what  is  best  in  our  fellows  and  our- 
selves. If  we  have  risen  to  the  height 
of  th^  love  that  forgives  the  penitent, 
we  have  not  thereby  risen  above  God. 
If  we  forgive  others,  He  can  do  no 
less  than  forgive  us.  If  we  have  not 
risen  to  that  height,  we  have  no  assur- 
ance that  He  will  forgive  us.  Un- 
willingness to  forgive  others,  therefore, 
is  a  denial  in  ourselves,  and  in  our 
own  experience,  of  the  very  quality 
which  in  God  is  the  only  ground  on 
which  we  could  hope  to  be  forgiven. 

One  who  does  not  love  cannot 
know  what  it  is  to  be  loved ;  one  who 
does  not  forgive  cannot  know  what  it 
is  to  be  forgiven.  The  gift  at  the 
altar,  the  church  service  of  song  and 
prayer  and  sermon,  is  utterly  profitless 


78  JESUS'   WAY 

and  useless;  it  cannot  bring  forgive- 
ness of  sin  or  knowledge  of  the  Father 
to  any  man  who  hath  aught  of  un- 
kindness  or  uncharitableness  toward 
his  brother  hidden  in  his  heart.  For 
the  God  of  grace  and  mercy  remains 
an  untranslated  word  in  the  ear  of 
every  man  who  cherishes  hardness  and 
hate  in  his  heart. 

This  forgiveness,  like  love,  of  which 
it  is  a  special  phase,  can  have  no  nu- 
merical limits.  It  must  be  repeated 
until  seventy  times  seven.  How  true 
that  is  in  the  more  intimate  human 
relations.  Parent  and  child,  even  wife 
and  husband,  all  persons  whose  lives 
touch  each  other  at  numerous  and  sen- 
sitive points,  can  walk  together  in  the 
Way  of  love  on  no  cheaper  terms  than 
this  of  forgiveness  until  seventy  times 


FORGIVENESS  79 

seven.  He  who  would  walk  in  this 
Way  must  care  more  for  his  brother 
as  he  is  in  himself  than  for  what  his 
brother  does  to  him,  or  what  he  can 
get  out  of  his  brother.  All  our  irre- 
concilable difficulties  and  differences 
come  from  this  lack  of  love ;  this  put- 
ting what  others  do  or  fail  to  do  to 
us  before  and  above  what  they  are, 
and  what  we  can  do  and  be  to  them. 
Selfishness  cannot  forgive.  Love  can- 
not help  forgiving.  That  is  why  the 
readiness  to  forgive  until  seventy 
times  seven  is  one  of  Jesus'  favorite 
tests  of  membership  in  his  kingdom. 

Forgiveness,  however,  is,  like  all 
spiritual  relations,  reciprocal.  With- 
out penitence  on  the  part  of  the  of- 
fender, there  can  be  readiness  to  for- 
give, but  not  forgiveness,  on  the  part 


8o  JESUS'    WAY 

of  the  offended.  Neither  God  nor 
man  can  forgive  the  impenitent ;  sim- 
ply because  forgiving  one  who  should 
still  cling  to  his  fault  would  be  par- 
ticipation in  the  fault.  Such  a  mush 
of  sentimental  indulgence  would  un- 
dermine the  foundations  of  all  right- 
eousness. It  is  our  duty  to  tell  a 
brother  his  fault  frankly  :  first  to  him 
alone ;  then  to  bring  to  bear  on  him 
the  influence  of  two  or  three  mutual 
friends;  and  finally,  if  need  be,  the 
moral  force  of  the  whole  circle  to 
which  he  belongs.  If  he  defies  all 
these  personal  influences,  and  persists 
in  his  perversity  in  spite  of  all  these 
personal  appeals,  he  thereby  denies 
his  membership  in  the  kingdom,  re- 
nounces the  Way  of  Jesus,  and  be- 
comes to  us  as  a  Gentile  and  a  publi- 


FORGIVENESS  8i 

can ;  —  a  man,  that  is,  toward  whom 
we  still  cherish  kind  feelings,  for 
whom  we  wish  the  best  material  pros- 
perity, and  for  whose  spiritual  good 
we  never  cease  to  labor  and  watch  and 
pray ;  but  one  toward  whom  we  need 
not,  because  we  cannot,  manifest  that 
intimacy  and  complacency  which  ob- 
tains between  persons  who  are  mutu- 
ally conscious  of  their  union  with  the 
same  Father,  and  are  striving  to  walk 
together  in  his  Way. 

This  forgiveness  which  Jesus 
teaches  he  practiced  himself  The 
diseased  man,  broken  down  by  dissi- 
pation ;  the  outcast  woman,  disheart- 
ened by  the  cold  scorn  of  the  very 
society  that  tolerates  and  abets  her 
ruin ;  the  penitent  thief  upon  the 
cross;  even  his  own  murderers,  are  the 


82  JESUS'    WAY 

objects  of  his  pity,  hjs  forgiveness,  his 
promises  and  prayers.  Authority  to 
forgive  sins  Jesus  confers  as  a  matter 
of  course  on  every  one  who  has 
known  the  Father's  forgiveness  of  his 
own  sins,  and  feels  prompted  by  the 
same  forgiving  Spirit  to  forgive  others. 
No  one,  not  even  he  who  reviles 
the  name  of  Christian,  and  blasphemes 
against  the  Son  of  Man,  should  be  be- 
yond the  pale  of  our  forgiveness.  For 
he  does  these  things,  as  the  murderers 
of  Jesus  did  their  cruel  deeds,  not 
knowing  what  he  does;  blinded  by 
prejudice  and  ignorance.  Even  ava- 
ricious, lustful,  cruel  men,  who  have 
wrecked  and  ruined  our  lives,  or  the 
lives  of  those  dear  to  us,  bitterly  as 
we  may  denounce  their  deeds,  heartily 
as  we  must  hate  their  vices  and  sins, 


FORGIVENESS  83 

if  they  repent,  must  be  forgiven  by 
us,  as  they  are  by  the  Father.  For  the 
man  is  more  than  his  deeds.  He  can 
rise  above  his  baseness.  And  who  are 
we,  when  he  is  trying  to  rise,  to  pre- 
sume to  thrust  him  down  ?  Certainly 
not  sons  of  the  Father;  not  followers 
of  Jesus'  Way.  With  the  single  ex- 
ception of  those  who  know  what  love 
is  and  scorn  it,  so  that  the  offer  of 
love  to  them  would  be  casting  pearls 
before  swine  and  giving  that  which 
is  holy  unto  dogs;  with  this  single 
exception,  our  love  and  forgiveness 
must  have  no  bounds,  no  limits.  And 
this  single  limit  is  one  which  the  hard- 
ness of  the  offender's  heart  puts  upon 
us;  not  one  which  we  of  ourselves 
erect. 

Finally,  Jesus  tells   us  that   these 


84  JESUS'   WAY 

people  whom  we  find  it  hardest  to 
forgive,  those  who  have  done  most 
wrong  and  feel  deepest  guilt,  are  the 
ones  who  appreciate  forgiveness  most, 
and  consequently  love  most.  The 
pardoned  penitent  makes  the  best 
disciple ;  for  he  appreciates,  as  the 
ninety  and  nine  just  persons  too  often 
do  not,  the  infinite  difference  between 
the  warm  life  of  mutual  sympathy 
and  love  within  the  kingdom  and  the 
coldness  and  isolation  and  bitterness 
of  the  sinful,  selfish  life  outside. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LOVE :  THE   LAW   OF  THE  WAY 


**  And  one  of  them,  a  lawyer,  asked  him  a  question, 
tempting  him,  Master,  which  is  the  great  commandment  in 
the  law  ?  And  he  said  unto  him,  Thou  shalt  love  the 
Lord  thy  God  with  all  thy  heart,  and  with  all  thy  soul, 
and  with  all  thy  mind.  This  is  the  great  and  first  com- 
mandment. And  a  second  like  unto  it  is  this,  Thou  shalt 
love  thy  neighbor  as  thyself.  On  these  two  commandments 
hangeth  the  whole  law,  and  the  prophets."     Matthew xxii. 

35-40- 

"  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said.  An  eye  for  an  eye,  and 
a  tooth  for  a  tooth  :  but  I  say  unto  you.  Resist  not  him 
that  is  evil :  but  whosoever  smiteth  thee  on  thy  right  cheek, 
turn  to  him  the  other  also.  And  if  any  man  would  go  to 
law  with  thee,  and  take  away  thy  coat,  let  him  have  thy 
cloke  also.  And  whosoever  shall  compel  thee  to  go  one 
mile,  go  with  him  twain.  Give  to  him  that  asketh  thee,  and 
from  him  that  would  borrow  of  thee  turn  not  thou  away. 

**  Ye  have  heard  that  it  was  said,  Thou  shalt  love  thy 
neighbor,  and  hate  thine  enemy  :  but  I  say  unto  you.  Love 
your  enemies,  and  pray  for  them  that  persecute  you  ;  that 
ye  may  be  sons  of  your  Father  which  is  in  heaven  :  for  he 
maketh  his  sun  to  rise  on  the  evil  and  the  good,  and  send- 
eth  rain  on  the  just  and  the  unjust.  For  if  ye  love  them  that 
love  you,  what  reward  have  ye  ?  do  not  even  the  publicans 
the  same  ?  "      Matthew  v.  38-46. 

"  All  things  therefore  whatsoever  ye  would  that  men 
should  do  unto  you,  even  so  do  ye  also  unto  them  :  for  this 
is  the  law  and  the  prophets."      Matthew  vii.  12. 

"  And  he  entered  into  the  temple,  and  began  to  cast  out 
them  that  sold  and  them  that  bought  in  the  temple,  and 
overthrew  the  tables  of  the  money-changers,  and  the  seats 
of  them  that  sold  the  doves  ;  and  he  would  not  suffer  that 
any  man  should  carry  a  vessel  through  the  temple.  And  he 
taught,  and  said  unto  them.  Is  it  not  written,  My  house 
shall  be  called  a  house  of  prayer  for  aU  the  nations  ?  but  ye 
have  made  it  a  den  of  robbers. "     Mark  xi.  15-17. 


CHAPTER  VII 

LOVE  :    THE    LAW   OF    THE    WAY 

Every  rational  plan  of  life  must  have 
its  principle,  or  law.  The  law  of 
Jesus'  Way  is  love  :  love  to  the  Fa- 
ther who  loves  us  all ;  love  to  all  our 
fellow  men,  who  are  as  dear  to  the 
Father  as  are  we  ourselves.  All  spe- 
cific rules  and  regulations,  all  ancient 
traditions  and  contemporary  customs, 
all  current  maxims  and  conventional 
standards,  are  to  be  kept  to  the  last 
jot  or  tittle,  in  so  far  as  they  express 
the  conditions  of  man's  well-being; 
but  when  they  are  set  up  as  ends  in 
themselves,  as  though  man  were  merely 


88  JESUS'   WAY 

made  for  them ;  when  they  become 
obstructions  to  human  welfare,  then 
they  are  to  be  disregarded  in  loyalty 
to  that  love  which  is  their  origin  and 
only  justification.  He  who  through 
lack  of  love  should  break  the  least  of 
these  commandments  would  be  the 
least  in  the  kingdom  of  heaven.  Yet 
he  who  should  not  dare  to  break  a 
tradition,  which  had  been  exaggerated 
or  perverted  into  an  excuse  for  neglect 
of  some  duty  which  love  demands, 
would  thereby  exclude  himself  from 
the  kingdom  altogether.  To  break 
the  traditional  Sabbath  for  the  sake  of 
doing  good  is  the  only  way  to  preserve 
and  fulfill  its  essential  spirit.  Institu- 
tions and  laws  are  made  for  man,  and 
express  the  love  of  the  Father  who 
seeks  the  impartial  good  of  all. 


LOVE  89 

Love  is  at  once  the  source  and  the 
fulfillment  of  all  law.  Love  defines 
our  neighbor  as  the  man  whom  we  can 
help,  and  measures  our  duty  to  him 
by  what  we  would  wish  for  ourselves. 
Love  swears  by  no  oath,  for  those 
whom  love  binds  need  no  extraneous 
bond.  Love  is  not  covetous;  for  it 
would  scorn  to  profit  by  another's  loss. 
Love  excludes  lust;  for  lust  would 
make  another  a  mere  means  to  selfish 
ends.  Love  will  not  commit  adultery ; 
for  the  destruction  of  pure  family  life 
for  others  is  too  costly  and  cruel  a 
price  for  love  to  pay  for  a  passing 
pleasure. 

Love  will  not  kill,  either  suddenly 
with  a  sword,  or  slowly  by  unkind- 
ness;  for  love  gives  and  enhances 
life.    Love  will  not  steal,  either  goods 


90  JESUS'   WAY 

from  the  counter,  money  from  the 
purse,  value  from  stock,  or  time  from  an 
employer ;  for  the  interests  and  rights 
of  others  and  of  one's  self  are  one  to 
him  who  shares  the  Father's  love  for 
all.  Love  will  not  be  proud ;  for  the 
weakness  of  another,  with  whom  one's 
own  strength  is  contrasted,  is,  to  him 
who  loves,  a  sorrow  as  keen  as  though 
that  weakness  were  his  own.  Love 
will  not  hate  even  the  sinner  and  the 
man  who  does  wrong ;  for  this  wrong- 
doer's fault,  and  the  low  spiritual  estate 
which  it  implies,  will  call  forth  so 
much  pity  that,  in  comparison,  the 
wrong  it  inflicts  upon  us  will  seem 
slight.  Even  our  enemies  and  our 
persecutors  we  will  pray  for,  and 
stand  ready,  at  the  first  opportunity, 
to  forgive  and  help;  since  love  can 


LOVE  91 

do  no  less.  Love  would  soften  the 
hard  heart  of  an  unloving  husband  or 
wife,  rather  than  indulge  its  hardness 
by  easy  divorce.  It  would  expand 
the  selfish  nature  of  an  ungrateful 
child,  rather  than  find  in  pious  ob- 
servances a  pretext  for  neglect  of  filial 
obligations. 

Even  legitimate  self-assertion  should 
be  waived,  when  by  parting  with  coat 
or  cloak,  or  going  the  double  distance 
with  an  exacting  brother,  or  letting  an 
unreasonable  person  have  his  own  way 
on  unessential  matters,  we  can  main- 
tain a  friendly  relation,  which  keeping 
the  coat,  or  declining  the  long  walk, 
or  insisting  on  what  we  deem  the 
wiser  way  would  strain  and  break. 
Even  the  whims,  moods,  and  morbid 
apprehensions   of    sensitive,   nervous 


92  JESUS'  WAY 

people,  even  when  we  see  clearly  their 
utter  absurdity,  must  be  treated  with 
all  seriousness  and  consideration,  if 
we  would  really  love  them  in  all  their 
disabilities.  For  the  personal  is  worth 
more  than  the  material.  The  love 
without  the  cloak  is  worth  more  than 
the  cloak  without  the  love.  A  long 
walk  with  sympathy  is  better  than  a 
short  walk  ending  in  bitterness  and 
alienation.  It  is  often  better  to  be  on 
good  terms  with  a  person  by  letting 
him  have  his  own  way,  even  though 
we  do  not  like  it,  than  to  be  on  bad 
terms  with  him  as  a  result  of  insisting 
on  what  we  consider  a  better  way  of 
our  own.  He  who  has  not  had  abun- 
dant occasion  to  recognize  this  princi- 
ple cannot  have  had  much  experience 
of  close  contact  with  many  men  of 


LOVE  93 

many  moods  and  minds.  Without 
this  principle  constantly  applied,  most 
homes  would  be  unendurable;  most 
friendships  would  be  short-Hved;  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  in  any  of  its  more 
intimate  aspects  would  be  impossible. 
That  people  generally  have  found  this 
counsel  of  Jesus  a  hard  saying  is  sim- 
ply an  indication  of  the  general  hard- 
ness of  the  human  heart ;  a  revelation 
of  how  blind  the  world  still  is  to  the 
most  obvious  and  elementary  princi- 
ples of  the  spiritual  life.  For  without 
the  constant  application  of  this  princi- 
ple, no  man  who  is  more  than  a  recluse, 
no  man  who  is  a  member  of  a  family, 
or  does  a  complicated  business,  or 
takes  his  part  in  politics,  or  combines 
with  other  people  in  any  enterprise, 
can  maintain  those  pleasant  personal 


94  JESUS'   WAY 

relations  which  are  the  most  essential 
marks  of  Jesus'  Way. 

Yet  even  love  has  liniits  in  the 
limited  capacity  of  others.  While  all 
men  are  to  be  loved,  love  will  express 
itself  toward  the  Gentile  and  the  pub- 
lican, who  cannot  understand  it  and 
might  mistake  courteous  concession 
for  weakness,  in  a  different  way  from 
that  in  which  it  will  express  itself 
toward  brethren  who  are  also  sharers 
in  the  Way  of  love,  and  know  how  to 
interpret  its  acts  of  kindness  and  for- 
bearance out  of  their  own  experience. 
Affections  that  are  holy  are  not  to  be 
given  to  those  who  will  misinterpret 
them  in  terms  of  selfishness  or  sensual- 
ity. The  pearls  of  self-denying  love 
are  not  to  be  cast  before  swine  who 
will  take  all  they  can  get,  and  then 


LOVE  95 

give  all  the  credit  to  their  own  shrewd- 
ness or  hardness  in  extorting  it.  Love 
has  its  stern  side.  It  will  put  the  per- 
sonal above  the  material  every  time. 
It  will  turn  the  other  cheek  to  the 
smiter,  when  that  method  promises 
better  personal  relations  than  resistance. 
But  when  the  whip  of  small  cords 
promises  to  be  more  effective  in  bring- 
ing hard  and  heartless  men  to  their 
moral  senses,  love  will  use  that  as  the 
Master  did.  To  show  a  bad  man  the 
pain  his  badness  brings  to  others,  by 
making  him  feel  the  sting  of  its  pain 
and  shame  in  his  own  smarting  body 
and  stinging  conscience,  is  often  the 
very  best  favor  we  can  confer  upon 
him.  If  we  were  as  blind  to  moral 
issues  as  he  is,  it  would  be  good  for 
us  to  have  our  eyes  opened  in  just  that 


96  JESUS'   WAY 

painful  way.  Indignation,  reproofj 
rebuke,  denunciation,  punishment,  are 
all  perfectly  consistent  with  love ;  all 
are  abundantly  represented  in  the  re- 
corded utterances  and  actions  of  the 
Master ;  all  are  required  of  the  parent, 
the  teacher,  the  judge,  the  ruler,  the 
manager  of  men  and  affairs,  who  seeks 
first  the  kingdom  of  God  and  his  right- 
eousness in  these  practical  concerns. 
Whether  a  man  is  a  disciple  of  Jesus 
or  not  does  not  depend  on  whether  he 
follows  Jesus'  precept  of  non-resistance 
or  his  practice  of  resistance,  in  any 
particular  case.  If  he  were  to  fol- 
low either  line  exclusively,  he  would 
thereby  fail  to  be  a  follower  of  the 
Master  who  inculcated  and  practiced 
both.  Jesus'  Way  simply  requires 
that  both  our  resistance  and  our  non- 


LOVE  97 

resistance  shall  spring  from  love  for 
the  person  concerned.  Non-resistance 
through  weakness,  or  cowardice,  or  in- 
difference, or  negligence  is  just  as 
foreign  to  Jesus'  Way  as  is  resistance 
through  wrath,  spite,  hate,  or  revenge. 
To  remember  that  the  unreasonable, 
unjust,  cruel,  treacherous  man  is  a  man 
for  all  that ;  to  show  him  the  good- 
ness of  the  better  Way  by  gentleness, 
if  I  may;  to  show  him  the  meanness 
of  his  own  way  by  harshness,  if  I  must; 
but  whether  I  take  the  one  course  or 
the  other,  to  have  his  best  interests 
all  the  time  at  heart, — that  is  Jesus' 
Way. 

Since  the  basis  of  love  for  one's 
neighbor  is  the  appreciation  of  one's 
own  interests  and  claims,  the  Way  of 
Jesus  does  not  discourage  but  rather 


98  JESUS'    WAY 

enjoins  shrewdness  in  the  maintenance 
of  one's  rights,  in  warding  off  cap- 
tious critics,  and  in  repulsing  imperti- 
nent intruders.  The  wisdom  of  the 
serpent  is  by  no  means  incompatible 
with  the  harmlessness  of  the  dove. 
Presence  of  mind,  such  as  the  unscru- 
pulous exercise  in  the  practice  of  in- 
justice, may  well  be  drafted  into  the 
defense  and  service  of  the  Way. 

Neither  is  the  disciple  of  the  Way 
called  upon  to  wear  himself  out  under 
a  load  of  borrowed  troubles  or  morbid 
conscientiousness.  When  one  is  tired, 
it  is  at  once  his  duty  and  his  privilege 
to  rest.  To  lose  the  sense  of  quiet 
cheerfulness  in  the  presence  of  the 
Lord  by  elaborate  housekeeping,  or 
multiplied  charities,  or  promiscuous 
philanthropies,  or   assumed   responsi- 


LOVE  99 

bilities,  is  to  sacrifice,  for  unprofitable 
superfluities,  the  one  thing  needful. 
While  all  powers  are  to  be  used  to 
the  utmost,  the  waste  of  overwork  and 
the  worse  wastes  of  fret  and  worry 
are  to  be  shunned  no  less  than  the 
rust  that  follows  disuse.  The  riches 
of  the  spiritual  life  are  to  be  guarded 
as  carefully  as  a  sensible  householder 
guards  his  worldly  goods.  For  he 
who  will  serve  others  best  must  keep 
himself  in  prime  condition.  It  is  a 
poor,  short-sighted  generosity  to  leave 
our  lamps  incapable  of  shedding  light, 
and  to  exclude  ourselves  from  the 
feast,  in  order  to  give  away  our  oil  to 
people  who  are  too  shiftless  to  pro- 
vide it  for  themselves.  Spiritual  thrift, 
which  guards  the  springs  of  nervous 
energy,  and   keeps   the   fountains  of 


100  JESUS'   WAY 

cheerfulness  and  health  full  and  over- 
flowing, is  an  essential  condition  of 
walking  joyfully  in  the  Way  our- 
selves and  winning  others  to  it. 

The  only  thing  we  need  be  con- 
cerned about  is  the  purity  of  our  mo- 
tives. If  these  are  right,  if  the  tree  is 
good,  the  fruit  will  follow  in  due  time. 
For  outward  results,  into  which  many 
factors  enter,  we  have  no  responsibil- 
ity beyond  this  fundamental  one,  to 
be  sure  that  what  we  do  is  done  in 
love  to  all  whom  it  affects.  Nothing 
external  can  harm  us;  for  it  cannot 
decrease  our  love  to  God  and  man. 
What  goes  out  from  a  man  in  word 
and  deed,  that  defiles  him  if  it  proceed 
not  out  of  a  heart  full  of  love.  Evil 
thoughts,  murders,  adulteries,  fornica- 
tions, thefts,  false  witness,  railings,  be- 


LOVE  loi 

cause  all  these  express  a  selfish  and 
sensual  heart  in  which  no  true  and 
tender  consideration  for  others  dwells, 
—  these  defile  a  man.  But  disregard 
of  rites  and  slight  esteem  of  ceremo- 
nies do  not  defile  a  man,  unless  they 
imply  a  lack  of  consideration  for  the 
people  who  use  and  value  them. 

The  love  which  is  the  open  secret 
of  Jesus'  Way  is  no  mere  soft  senti- 
ment luxuriating  in  the  sense  of  its 
own  sweetness.  Nor  is  the  expression 
of  this  sweet  experience  in  words 
enough.  Many  will  say,  "Lord,  Lord," 
in  all  the  ardor  of  emotional  ecstasy, 
to  whom  he  will  reply,  "  I  never  knew 
you;  depart  from  me,  ye  that  work 
iniquity."  Nor  yet  is  the  doing  of 
good  deeds  a  sure  sign  of  belonging 
to   the  Way.     For  good  deeds,  like 


102  JESUS'    WAY 

prayers  and  fasting  and  alms,  may  be 
done  in  pride  and  ostentation.  Good 
deeds  done  in  the  spirit  of  love,  how- 
ever, like  the  care  of  the  wounded 
traveler  by  the  Samaritan,  are  the 
sure  signs  of  the  Way.  For  this 
Samaritan  did  not  merely  relieve  his 
own  sensibilities  by  relieving  the  un- 
fortunate man's  immediate  sufferings. 
He  bound  up  his  wounds,  pouring 
on  them  oil  and  wine ;  and  he  set 
him  on  his  own  beast,  and  brought 
him  to  an  inn,  and  took  care  of  him. 
And  on  the  morrow  he  took  out  two 
pence,  and  gave  them  to  the  host  and 
said,  "  Take  care  of  him ;  and  what- 
soever thou  spendest  more,  I,  when  I 
come  back  again,  will  repay  thee." 
That  is,  he  made  the  wounded  man's 
condition  his  own,  and  saw  the  case 


LOVE  103 

through,  as  faithful  when  absent  as  he 
had  been  when  present.  That  is  the 
test  which  marks  off  true  Christian 
love  from  sentimental  charity.  Do 
our  works  revolve  about  ourselves, 
our  own  activities,  our  own  sensibili- 
ties^ Then  we  are  philanthropists, 
workers,  anything  you  please ;  only 
we  are  not  Christians ;  we  are  not  in 
Jesus'  Way.  For  true  love  shares  the 
whole  personal  problem  of  its  object, 
and  strengthens  the  will  of  him  whom 
it  serves  by  sympathy  even  while  it 
helps  him  bear  his  burden.  A  very 
little  of  this  sympathetic  sharing  of 
life's  whole  problem  with  a  few  indi- 
viduals will  take  one  farther  along 
Jesus'  Way,  and  do  more  genuine  and 
lasting  good,  than  a  hundred  times  the 
amount  of  money  and  strength  spent 


104  JESUS'    WAY 

in  promiscuous  and  merely  institu- 
tional charity;  though,  in  our  com- 
plex modern  life,  generous  contribu- 
tions of  time,  money,  and  strength  to 
great  organized  philanthropies  and 
charities  are  indispensable  means  of 
expressing  the  Father's  love,  and  our 
own,  to  the  great  masses  of  our  fellows 
who  are  beyond  our  personal  reach. 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LOYALTY:    THE   WITNESS   TO   THE 
WAY 


"  Ye  are  the  salt  of  the  earth  :  but  if  the  salt  have  lost 
its  savor,  vvrherewith  shall  it  be  salted  ?  it  is  thenceforth 
good  for  nothing,  but  to  be  cast  out  and  trodden  under  foot 
of  men.  Ye  are  the  light  of  the  world.  A  city  set  on  a 
hill  cannot  be  hid.  Neither  do  men  light  a  lamp,  and  put  it 
under  the  bushel,  but  on  the  stand  ;  and  it  shineth  unto  all 
that  are  in  the  house.  Even  so  let  your  light  shine  before 
men,  that  they  may  see  your  good  works,  and  glorify  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven."    Matthew  v.  13-16, 

*  *  Take  heed  that  ye  do  not  your  righteousness  before  men, 
to  be  seen  of  them  :  else  ye  have  no  reward  with  your 
Father  which  is  in  heaven."      Matthew  vi.  i. 

**  And  he  that  received  the  five  talents  came  and  brought 
other  five  talents,  saying.  Lord,  thou  deliveredst  unto  me 
five  talents.  His  lord  said  unto  him.  Well  done,  good  and 
faithful  servant  :  thou  hast  been  faithful  over  a  few  things, 
I  will  set  thee  over  many  things  :  enter  thou  into  the  joy  of 
thy  lord.  For  unto  every  one  that  hath  shall  be  given,  and 
he  shall  have  abundance  :  but  from  him  that  hath  not,  even 
that  which  he  hath  shall  be  taken  away.  And  cast  ye  out 
the  unprofitable  servant  into  the  outer  darkness  :  there  shall 
be  the  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth."  Matthew  xxv.  20, 
21,  29,  30.  _ 

* '  What  I  tell  you  in  the  darkness,  speak  ye  in  the  light : 
and  what  ye  hear  in  the  ear,  proclaim  upon  the  housetops." 
Matthew  X.  27. 

*'  The  harvest  truly  is  plenteous,  but  the  laborers  are  few. 
Pray  ye  therefore  the  Lord  of  the  harvest,  that  he  send  forth 
laborers  into  his  harvest."      Matthew  ix.  37,  38. 

**  Every  one  therefore  who  shall  confess  me  before  men, 
him  will  I  also  confess  before  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven. 
But  whosoever  shall  deny  me  before  men,  him  wUl  I  also 
deny  before  my  Father  which  is  in  heaven."  Matthew  x. 
32,  33- 


CHAPTER  VIII 

LOYALTY  :     THE    WITNESS    TO    THE    WAY 

The  first  duty  of  those  who  have 
learned  the  blessed  secret  of  Jesus' 
Way  of  love  to  God  and  man  is  to 
be  loyal  to  it  and  spread  the  good 
news  abroad.  The  Way  is  itself  spir- 
itual, invisible.  It  can  be  seen  only 
in  the  persons  and  lives  of  those  who 
walk  therein.  Hence  the  disciples 
are  the  salt  of  the  earth,  and  must 
keep  the  savor  of  this  new  life  sweet 
and  strong  in  their  own  souls ;  they 
are  the  light  of  the  world,  and  must 
let  their  good  deeds  shine  far  and 
wide  to  reveal  to  those  who  sit  in  the 


io8  JESUS'   WAY 

darkness  of  natural  selfishness  the 
beauty  of  this  better  Way.  Yet  this 
letting  one's  good  deeds  shine  to  the 
glory  of  the  Father  and  the  honor  of 
the  Way  is  in  no  wise  inconsistent 
with  the  complementary  duty  to  mod- 
estly conceal  one's  own  individual 
merit  in  the  work  he  does,  letting  not 
the  left  hand  know  what  the  right 
hand  doeth,  and  giving  all  the  glory 
to  God  who  is  the  inspirer  of  it  all. 
Not  to  show  off  one's  good  deeds  in 
personal  vanity,  nor  to  conceal  them 
from  timidity,  but  in  self-forge tfulness 
to  let  God's  goodness  shine  through 
us,  is  the  mark  of  perfect  loyalty. 

The  Way  must  be  everything  or 
nothing  to  us.  Our  eye  must  be  sin- 
gle. We  cannot  serve  two  masters : 
God  and  mammon ;  love  and  selfish- 


LOYALTY  109 

ness.  Every  deed,  every  transaction, 
every  vote,  every  idle  word,  either  re- 
veals or  obscures  the  Way ;  is  either 
for  Christ  or  against  him.  Each  man 
who  has  found  the  Way  is  bound  to 
become  a  fisher  of  men  to  draw  them 
into  it ;  a  worker  in  the  busy  vineyard 
of  society,  a  laborer  in  the  ripe  har- 
vest of  humanity.  As  the  Master 
went  from  town  to  town  preaching  the 
Gospel  of  the  kingdom,  the  disciple, 
whether  he  goes  abroad  or  attends  to 
his  affairs  at  home,  is  bound  to  make 
himself  a  living  witness  and  embodi- 
ment of  the  Way,  so  that  men  may 
see  at  least  its  outward  fruits  in  all  he 
says  and  does.  Ultimately  this  Gos- 
pel must  be  brought,  both  by  precept 
and  example,  to  all  the  nations  of  the 
earth.     By  word  and  deed,  by  influ- 


no  JESUS*    WAY 

ence  and  support,  by  action  and  en- 
durance, each  disciple  is  called  upon  to 
prove  to  the  world  that  the  kingdom 
of  goodwill,  the  Way  of  love,  is  at 
hand.  For  the  lives  of  those  who  walk 
in  the  Way,  in  kindness,  mercy,  gen- 
tleness, and  sincerity,  are  the  only  wit- 
nesses of  its  reality.  Supernatural 
agencies,  were  they  available,  would 
be  useless.  Men  must  be  drawn  to 
the  Way  by  men  who  are  already  in 
it,  and  who  embody  and  manifest  its 
spirit  and  life.  Hence  each  disciple 
is  responsible  for  the  full  use  of  his 
powers.  The  more  one  does,  the  more 
will  he  be  able  to  do.  Fidelity  in 
little  things  is  the  indispensable  train- 
ing for  larger  usefulness. 

Though  fruit  is  demanded  of  all, 
and  the  unfruitful  tree  is  doomed,  yet 


LOYALTY  Hi 

the  Lord  is  patient,  and  will  give  even 
the  fruitless  tree  fresh  digging  and 
dressing  year  after  year  before  He  cuts 
it  down.  Outward  profession  of  loy- 
alty to  the  Way,  which  says,  "Lord, 
Lord,"  is  of  less  consequence  than  that 
inner  loyalty  of  spirit  which  does  the 
Lord's  goodwill  in  daily  life.  The 
best  fruits  are  mercy,  not  sacrifice; 
righteousness,  not  ritualism  ;  perform- 
ance, not  profession.  No  slightest 
deed  shall  pass  unnoticed,  or  fall  into 
forgetfulness.  The  value  of  the  out- 
ward act  is  to  be  measured  exclusively 
by  the  inward  spirit  that  prompts  it ; 
so  that  the  mite  of  the  poor  widow 
may  be  the  greatest  gift  of  all. 

Witness  to  Jesus  and  his  Way  is 
of  two  kinds.  The  more  conspicuous 
witness,   which    consists   in    "  taking 


112  JESUS'    WAY 

part  in  meeting,"  attending  church, 
teaching  in  Sunday-school,  contribut- 
ing to  organized  Christian  missions 
and  charities,  is  highly  important.  No 
one  can  be  thoroughly  loyal  to  Jesus 
without  taking  his  part  in  some  one  or 
other  of  these  organized  expressions 
of  his  Way;  provided  he  sees  and 
feels  that  they  are  worthy  embodi- 
ments of  it.  But  of  still  more  impor- 
tance, though  less  conspicuous  and  less 
easily  enforced,  are  "the  little,  name- 
less, unremembered  acts  of  kindness 
and  of  love  "  which  are  the  "  best  por- 
tion of  a  good  man's  life."  These 
are  manifestations  of  the  Way  itself; 
while  the  other  sort  of  witness  is  at 
best  an  identification  with  some  of 
its  outward  agencies  and  expressions. 
The   just,    kind,    generous,    pubhc- 


LOYALTY  113 

spirited,  cheerful,  helpful  life  is  the 
very  essence  of  the  Way ;  and,  while 
it  is  desirable  both  to  say,  "  I  go,  sir," 
and  to  actually  work  in  the  vineyard, 
if  it  is  a  choice  between  the  two,  the 
latter  is  preferable. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SACRIFICE:     THE     COST     OF     THE 
WAY 


**  The  Son  of  man  is  come  eating  and  drinking  5  and  ye 
say,  Behold,  a  gluttonous  man,  and  a  winebibber,  a  friend  of 
publicans  and  sinners  !  And  wisdom  is  justified  of  all  her  chil- 
dren."     Luke  vii.  34,  35. 

**  And  he  took  again  the  twelve,  and  began  to  tell  them 
the  things  that  were  to  happen  unto  him,  saying.  Behold,  we 
go  up  to  Jerusalem  ;  and  the  Son  of  man  shall  be  delivered 
unto  the  chief  priests  and  the  scribes  ;  and  they  shall  condemn 
him  to  death,  and  shall  deliver  him  unto  the  Gentiles  :  and 
they  shall  mock  him,  and  shall  spit  upon  him,  and  shall 
scourge  him,  and  shall  kill  him."      Mark  x.  32-34. 

*<In  like  manner  also  the  chief  priests  mocking  him, 
with  the  scribes  and  elders,  said,  He  saved  others  j  himself 
he  cannot  save."      Matthew  xxvii.  41,  42. 

*'  He  that  loveth  father  or  mother  more  than  me  is  not 
worthy  of  me  5  and  he  that  loveth  son  or  daughter  more 
than  me  is  not  worthy  of  me.  And  he  that  doth  not  take  his 
cross  and  foUow  after  me,  is  not  worthy  of  me.  He  that 
findeth  his  life  shall  lose  it ;  and  he  that  loseth  his  life  for  my 
sake  shall  find  it."     Matthew  x.  37-39. 

"  No  man  can  serve  two  masters  :  for  either  he  will  hate 
the  one,  and  love  the  other  ;  or  else  he  will  hold  to  one,  and 
depise  the  other.  Ye  cannot  serve  God  and  mammon." 
Matthew  vi.  24. 

* '  Lay  not  up  for  yourselves  treasures  upon  the  earth, 
where  moth  and  rust  doth  consume,  and  where  thieves  break 
through  and  steal :  but  lay  up  for  yourselves  treasures  in  hea- 
ven, where  neither  moth  nor  rust  doth  consume,  and  where 
thieves  do  not  break  through  nor  steal :  for  where  thy  treasure 
is,  there  will  thy  heart  be  also."      Matthew  vi.  19—21. 

"  And  Jesus  said  unto  his  disciples.  Verily  I  say  unto  you, 
It  is  hard  for  a  rich  man  to  enter  into  the  kingdom  of  hea- 
ven. And  when  the  disciples  heard  it,  they  were  astonished 
exceedingly,  sajdng.  Who  then  can  be  saved  ?  And  Jesus 
looking  upon  them  said  to  them.  With  men  this  is  impossi- 
ble 5  but  with  God  all  things  are  possible."  Matthew  xix. 
23,  25,  26. 


CHAPTER  IX 

SACRIFICE  :    THE    COST    OF    THE    WAY 

Every  interpretation  of  Jesus'  Way- 
has  insisted  on  the  cross  as  its  essential 
symbol.  Yet  the  reasons  which  have 
been  offered  for  this  necessity  of  sac- 
rifice on  the  part  of  Jesus  and  all  his 
followers  have  for  the  most  part  been 
wide  of  the  mark.  Starting  with  the 
erroneous  conception  of  a  God  of 
wrath  and  vengeance  to  be  appeased, 
they  have  missed,  as  a  matter  of  course, 
the  necessity  of  sacrifice  as  the  expres- 
sion and  revelation  of  a  Father  of  love. 
Yet  love  calls  for  sacrifices  of  which 
wrath   and   vengeance   never  dream. 


ii8  JESUS'    WAY 

The  greater  the  love,  the  greater  must 
be  the  sacrifice.  The  Father  who  loves 
all  his  children  must  bear  the  sins  and 
sorrows  of  all  upon  his  suffering  heart. 
And  the  Son  who  reveals  the  Father, 
all  sons  who  share  his  nature  and  re- 
ceive his  Spirit,  must  suffer  in  exact 
proportion  to  the  degree  in  which  they 
enter  into  the  Father's  purpose  and 
do  his  loving  will. 

To  bring  this  out,  however,  requires 
a  clear  view  of  the  origin  and  nature 
of  sin.  And  this  in  turn  calls  for  a 
thorough  analysis  of  human  nature. 

Men  by  nature  seek  their  own  self- 
ish good.  Their  appetites  and  pas- 
sions, their  ambitions  and  aspirations, 
their  instincts  and  impulses,  are  the 
conditions  of  their  self-preservation 
and  the  perpetuation  of  the  race.     As 


SACRIFICE  119 

such,  they  are  innocent  and  good.  No 
blame  attaches  to  the  Creator  who 
gave  them  to  us;  nor  to  ourselves,  so 
long  as  we  act  them  out  in  blind  re- 
sponse to  their  immediate  suggestions. 
The  perfect  picture  of  this  natural 
innocence  we  see  in  normal  animals. 
Their  wants,  like  the  means  of  grati- 
fying them,  are  immediate  and  finite. 
And  though  there  is  struggle  and 
strife  and  war  and  death  when  animal 
wants  come  into  competition,  yet  there 
is  no  deliberate  selfishness,  and  there- 
fore no  sin  and  conscious  guilt.  The 
animal,  keenly  intent  upon  its  own 
gratification,  is  incapable  of  represent- 
ing to  itself  the  misery  it  incidentally 
inflicts  on  its  competitor  and  victim. 
We  indeed  can  look  on  the  act  in  a 
light  which  makes  it  seem  bad.     But 


120  JESUS'    WAY 

the  animal  lacks  that  light,  and  so 
escapes  the  condemnation  such  light 
would  bring.  Now  the  natural,  unen- 
lightened man  sins  in  much  the  same 
innocent  way  that  an  animal  sins.  In 
a  rude,  primitive  society,  the  robber 
band  seldom  stop  to  think  of  the  hard- 
ship they  inflict  on  the  poor  villagers 
from  whom  they  wrest  their  herds  and 
crops.  The  prostitute  falls  in  the  first  in- 
stance, as  a  rule,  through  the  tenderest, 
sweetest,  holiest  impulse  of  her  sex. 
The  man  who  patronizes  houses  of 
prostitution  does  not  realize  that  in  so 
doing  he  is  a  partner  in  the  most  whole- 
sale system  of  murder  and  degradation 
civilized  society  continues  to  permit. 
The  saloon  keeper  is  usually  a  man 
of  genial,  kindly  heart,  utterly  oblivi- 
ous of  the  domestic  misery  which  is  the 


SACRIFICE  121 

counterpart  of  his  easily  gotten  profits 
out  of  weak  men's  appetites.  The  pro- 
moter of  unsound  enterprises  and  the 
wrecker  of  sound  ones,  the  manipulator 
of  other  people's  property  intrusted  to 
his  official  care,  scarcely  appreciate 
the  widespread  want  and  woe  result- 
ing from  their  unscrupulous  transac- 
tions. Indeed,  these  men  and  women 
who  fall  lowest  in  our  moral  scale 
often  do  so  in  consequence  of  an 
excess  of  those  very  traits  on  which 
the  welfare  and  perpetuation  of  the 
race  depends.  The  saloon  keeper  has 
often  a  great  deal  more  of  the  milk 
of  human  kindness  in  his  heart,  and  is 
a  much  better  fellow  to  spend  the  long 
winter  evenings  with,  than  the  temper- 
ance reformer  who  swears  out  the 
warrant  against  him.     The  harlot  on 


122  JESUS'    WAY 

the  street  often  retains  more  of  gener- 
ous womanliness  than  the  querulous, 
censorious  matron  in  her  luxurious 
drawing-room,  robed  in  outwardly 
spotless  respectability,  but  inwardly 
full  of  vanity  and  pride  and  exclu- 
siveness  and  uncharitableness.  The 
men  who  drive  hard  bargains  and 
grind  down  their  employees  are  often 
at  heart  quite  as  well  meaning  as  the 
pale,  impractical  moralists  and  social- 
ists who  rail  at  them,  but  have  not  the 
energy  or  enterprise  to  earn  a  decent 
living  for  their  own  families.  The 
wild  college  boy  who  breaks  all  rules 
and  regulations,  academic,  moral,  civil, 
often  has  in  him  elements  of  strength 
and  winsomeness  and  charm  which 
his  irreproachable  and  studious  class- 
mate sadly  lacks. 


SACRIFICE  123 

Now  Jesus  saw  all  this  with  perfect 
clearness  ;  and  in  consequence  he  liked 
these  impulsive,  spontaneous,  exces- 
sive men  and  women,  and  became 
the  recognized  friend  of  publicans  and 
sinners.  Of  course  that  shocked  be- 
yond all  bounds  the  sensibilities  of  the 
consciously  virtuous  and  respectable, 
the  scribes  and  Pharisees,  and  brought 
on  him  their  enmity  and  hate.  Yet 
Jesus  could  do  no  less.  The  Father 
loved  these  publicans  and  sinners; 
pitied  their  blindness;  understood  the 
strength  of  their  sensuous  impulses 
and  uncontrolled  desires.  The  Phar- 
isees and  scribes  did  not  love  them ; 
did  not  understand  them;  despised 
and  hated  them.  Jesus  had  his  choice 
to  side  with  his  Father  and  the  prod- 
igals, outcasts,  and  harlots  whom  the 


124  JESUS'    WAY 

Father  loved;  or  to  side  with  the 
supercilious  Pharisees,  who  loved  no- 
body but  their  precious  selves,  and 
so  fall  out  of  the  Father's  love  alto- 
gether. Jesus  deliberately  accepted 
the  envy  and  malice  of  the  Pharisees 
and  chief  priests ;  and  they,  aided  by 
the  avarice  of  the  stupid  Judas,  the 
slander  of  the  frivolous  rabble,  and  the 
servility  of  the  stolid  Pilate,  nailed  him 
to  the  cross. 

More  than  that,  Jesus  made  ene- 
mies of  many  of  the  very  men  whom 
he  befriended.  For  with  all  his  liking 
for  these  blinded  and  impulsive  sin- 
ners, he  abhorred  their  sins.  He  lost 
no  opportunity  to  show  the  extortioner 
how  mean  was  his  devouring  of  wid- 
ows' houses;  the  libertine  how  cruel 
was  his  lust ;  the  harlot  how  shameful 


SACRIFICE  125 

was  her  life  of  degradation;  the  devotee 
of  riches  how  unworthy  was  his  idola- 
try; the  proud  man  or  woman  how 
loveless  and  repulsive  were  their  hard 
and  hollow  and  sepulchral  hearts. 
Hence  many  who  were  at  first  at- 
tracted to  him,  when  they  saw  them- 
selves as  he  saw  them,  were  angry, 
walked  with  him  no  more,  and  were 
ready  to  turn  against  him  at  the  first 
opportunity. 

The  better  a  man  is,  the  more  bit- 
terly will  all  evil  men  hate  him  : 
partly  because  of  the  rebuke  he  brings 
to  their  sin;  partly  because  of  the 
resistance  he  offers  to  the  successful 
execution  of  their  sinful  schemes.  On 
both  grounds  the  chief  priests  and 
Pharisees  had  abundant  occasion  to 
hate  Jesus.    The  obsequious  reverence 


126  JESUS'   WAY 

which  the  multitude  had  bestowed  on 
them  was  in  danger  of  being  trans- 
ferred to  this  more  genial,  friendly, 
sympathetic  teacher  of  the  new  Way. 
Hypocrisy,  extortion,  adultery,  pre- 
tentious piety,  hollow  legality,  over- 
elaborated  ritualism,  at  once  became 
in  the  eyes  of  the  multitude  the  mani- 
fest contradictions  and  obscurations  of 
the  Father's  will  which  they  were  in 
the  pure  eyes  of  Jesus.  To  save  them- 
selves and  their  respectability,  they 
had  to  crucify  Jesus.  His  death  was 
the  penalty  he  had  to  pay  for  being 
the  faithful  Son  of  a  loving  Father 
and  the  generous  friend  of  sinful  men 
and  outcast  women,  in  a  world  where 
organized  pride,  pretense,  heartless- 
ness,  and  hate  were  enthroned  in  re- 
ligious,   social,    and   political   affairs. 


SACRIFICE  127 

There  is  an  element  of  truth  in  calling 
it  a  ransom  he  had  to  pay  to  the  evil 
principle  dominant  in  the  world,  as 
for  centuries  the  early  Christians  did. 
But  we  are  nearer  the  simple  facts  of 
the  primitive  Gospel  if  we  regard  it 
as  the  price  love  had  to  pay  for  being 
true  to  itself  in  a  world  where  pride 
and  hate  were  in  possession  of  the 
religious  system,  the  social  prestige, 
and  the  political  power.  Jesus  could 
have  revealed  the  Father's  love  in  the 
world  as  he  found  it  in  the  Palestine 
of  his  day,  on  no  easier  or  cheaper 
terms  than  winning  the  envy  and 
malice  of  the  men  who  were  in  influ- 
ence and  power,  and  losing  his  life  in 
consequence.  To  be  a  friend  of  sin- 
ners and  a  foe  to  sin,  as  Jesus  was ;  to 
love  the  lowest  in  their  blindness,  yet 


128  JESUS'    WAY 

to  drag  the  sins  of  the  loftiest  into  the 
searching  light  his  Father's  love  shed 
upon  them,  was  a  work  no  man  could 
hope  to  accomplish  who  held  his  own 
life  dear.  Jesus  saw  clearly  that  his 
Way  would  lead  him  to  "suffer  many 
things  of  the  elders  and  chief  priests 
and  scribes,  and  be  killed ; "  but  to 
the  suggestion  that  he  turn  aside  from 
his  chosen  Way  he  replied,  "Get 
thee  behind  me,  Satan:  thou  art  a 
stumbling-block  unto  me :  for  thou 
mindest  not  the  things  of  God,  but  the 
things  of  men." 

What  Jesus  experienced  himself 
he  expected  and  foretold  would  be 
the  lot  of  his  disciples.  "  Then  Jesus 
said  unto  his  disciples,  If  any  man 
would  come  after  me,  let  him  deny 
himself,  and  take  up  his  cross,  and  fol- 
low me." 


SACRIFICE  129 

The  Way  of  Jesus  is  no  exception 
to  the  universal  rule  that  we  cannot 
have  one  thing  without  giving  up  a 
host  of  competing  things  for  the  sake 
of  it.  Life  is  shot  through  and  through 
with  tragedy.  "  All  action  is  guilt," 
as  Hegel  says.  We  must  murder  one 
or  more  alternatives  in  every  difficult 
choice  we  make.  One  course  of  con- 
duct adopted  means  a  hundred  other 
possible  courses  sacrificed.  How  much 
the  scholar  must  give  up  of  outdoor 
life,  for  which  nevertheless  the  appe- 
tite is  not  wanting  !  How  much  of 
rest  and  tranquillity  the  ambitious 
statesman  must  forego  !  How  sacrifi- 
cial of  almost  everything  else  worth 
having  is  the  life  of  the  man  who 
makes  haste  to  get  rich  !  How  ready 
to  give  up  all  else  for  the  one  woman 


130  JESUS'    WAY 

of  his  choice  is  every  faithful  lover ! 
Sacrifice  therefore  is  unescapable.  Yet 
there  are  two  radically  different  ways 
of  making  the  sacrifice.  One  may 
save  himself  and  his  immediate  selfish 
interests  by  sacrificing  the  interests 
and  happiness  of  others.  That  is  the 
essence  of  all  meanness  and  sin.  Over 
the  camp  of  all  the  cowards  and  crim- 
inals, all  the  thieves  and  liars,  all  the 
libertines  and  debauchees,  is  written 
the  inscription,  "  They  tried  to  save 
themselves;  others  they  would  not 
save."  All  sin  is  parasitic.  It  saves 
itself  by  sucking  the  life  out  of  some- 
thing better  than  itself  Every  sinner 
of  every  stripe  belongs  to  the  genus 
parasite.  Evil  has  not  the  strength  to 
stand  alone.  It  must  always  fasten 
on  to  something  better  than  itself  to 


SACRIFICE  131 

hold  it  up.  The  sinner  is  a  sponge,  a 
dead  beat,  getting  his  life  out  of  some- 
body's death;  buying  his  mean  and 
miserable  pleasure  at  cost  of  another's 
cruel  pain;  making  his  despicable 
gain  out  of  another's  pitiable  loss.  No 
man  could  be  enough  of  a  fool  to  wish 
any  form  of  sin  to  become  the  gen- 
eral rule.  He  can  only  wish  it  as  a 
mean  exception  in  favor  of  himself 
A  few  examples  will  make  this  clear. 
A  student  cheats  in  an  examination. 
He  may  gain  a  petty  advantage  by 
his  sneaking  act.  But  suppose  every- 
body cheated  ;  and  the  school  or  col- 
lege winked  at  it.  Then  even  the 
cheater  would  gain  no  advantage ;  for 
neither  to  him  nor  to  anybody  else 
would  the  diploma  of  such  an  institu- 
tion, gained  on  such  terms,  be  worth 


132  JESUS'    WAY 

the  parchment  on  which  it  was  in- 
scribed. 

A  lie,  put  under  the  moral  micro- 
scope, reveals  the  same  parasitic  char- 
acter. Whatever  vitality  and  useful- 
ness, even  for  the  liar's  sordid  ends, 
a  lie  contains,  is  sucked  out  of  the 
universal  respect  for  truth  which 
generations  of  truth-telling  men  have 
laboriously  built  up.  If  everybody 
were  a  liar,  lies  would  not  be  worth 
the  telling.  They  are  available  only 
as  exceptions  to  a  general  truthful- 
ness which  they  are  doing  all  in  their 
power  to  break  down. 

Dishonesty  likewise,  whether  it  be 
pilfering,  or  housebreaking,  or  fraudu- 
lent book-keeping,  or  the  promotion 
of  unsound  enterprises,  or  accepting 
secret   rebates  and   commissions    for 


SACRIFICE  133 

contracts  executed  in  a  representative 
capacity,  or  securing  personal  and 
family  favors  through  political  pull, 
or  drawing  a  salary  in  a  position  for 
which  one  is  incompetent  or  in  which 
no  substantial  service  is  rendered,  when 
placed  under  the  moral  microscope, 
reveals  this  same  trait  of  sacrificing 
other  people  for  one's  own  advantage. 
The  dishonest  man  is  a  parasite,  sad- 
dled on  to  the  back  of  honest  labor, 
from  which  he  gets  his  living,  to  which 
he  gives  little  or  nothing  in  return. 

Gambling  is  parasitic  :  for  the  value 
of  the  chips  or  wagers  the  young  clerk 
or  student  plays  for  is  all  borrowed 
from  the  honest  toil  of  an  upright 
employer  or  honest  father,  whose  pro- 
ductive industry  creates  the  substan- 
tial values  these  stakes  represent.     A 


134  JESUS'    WAY 

society  in  which  gambhng  was  the 
rule  and  industry  the  exception  would 
be  as  badly  off  as  the  fabled  island  of 
the  sea,  in  which  all  the  inhabitants 
supported  themselves  by  taking  in 
one  another's  washing. 

Drunkenness  is  another  notoriously 
parasitic  sin ;  in  which  the  dissipation 
of  one  is  bought  at  the  expense  of 
others,  by  saddling  on  them  the  gall- 
ing burden  of  a  perfectly  wanton  and 
needless  poverty  and  want.  It  is  the 
gigantic  social  and  economic  parasite 
of  the  modern  world. 

Yet  the  crudest  and  meanest  para- 
sitism of  all  is  licentiousness.  All  that 
is  sweetest  and  dearest  in  our  own 
lives  we  owe  to  the 

"  Relations  dear  and  all  the  charities 
Of  father,  son,  and  brother.** 


SACRIFICE  135 

No  one  of  us  would  wish  to  have 
been  born  as  the  product  of  the  pass- 
ing passion  of  some  heartless  creature, 
too  mean  to  own  either  mother  or 
child.  No  one  of  us  would  wish  to 
rear  our  own  daughters  for  the  brief, 
bitter  life  of  the  brothel.  Every  in- 
stinct within  us  recoils  from  the  merest 
suggestion  of  the  homeless,  heartless, 
loveless  life  into  which  we  should  all 
be  plunged  were  licentiousness  to  be- 
come universal.  Licentiousness  is  a 
shameless  parasite,  feeding  on  and  de- 
stroying the  precious  institutions  and 
relations  which  generations  of  pure 
and  chaste  souls  have  slowly  devel- 
oped. Of  all  the  forms  of  parasitism 
and  meanness  and  sin,  this,  which  with 
one  hand  clings  to  the  family  life,  to 
which  we  owe  all  that  is  best  in  our- 


136  JESUS'    WAY 

selves,  on  which  hangs  all  our  hope 
for  our  children,  and  with  the  other 
does  all  in  our  power  to  rob  some 
other  person,  or  a  whole  class  of  per- 
sons, of  all  the  sweetness  and  sanctity 
which  family  and  home  mean  to  us 
and  to  our  children,  —  this  is  the  foul- 
est, the  crudest,  the  most  odious  to 
the  Father,  the  most  intolerable  to 
Jesus,  and  the  most  inconsistent  with 
his  Way. 

Now  Christian  sacrifice  is  the  exact 
opposite  of  all  this.  It  is  saving  other 
people  at  sacrifice  of  all  of  self  that 
is  inconsistent  with  their  welfare  and 
happiness.  As  the  motto  stamped  on 
all  sin  is,  "He  saved  something  for 
himself  at  the  expense  of  others,"  the 
motto  of  every  true  Christian  is  that 
jeeringly   yet   accurately  ascribed  to 


SACRIFICE  137 

Jesus  on  the  cross,  "  He  saved  others  ; 
himself  he  cannot  save."  The  honest 
student  sacrifices  the  petty  gain  in 
rank  dishonesty  would  bring  him,  and 
thereby  saves  the  honor  of  the  school 
and  the  worth  of  its  diplomas.  The 
truthful  man  foregoes  many  a  paltry 
advantage  a  lie  might  bring,  and 
thereby  saves  for  himself,  and  society 
with  him,  the  social  confidence  on 
which  civilization  rests.  The  upright 
business  man  time  and  again  must 
sacrifice  the  chance  to  make  a  fortune 
for  himself  out  of  widespread  disaster 
brought  on  innocent  investors,  trust- 
ing employers,  or  defrauded  employ- 
ees ;  but  he  saves  the  property  and 
welfare  of  thousands,  together  with 
his  own  modest  competence.  These 
honest  men  are  in  the  great  majority. 


138  JESUS'   WAY 

Gigantic  as  are  the  parasites  of  dis- 
honesty which  fasten  on  our  complex 
business  system,  yet  their  very  bulk 
and  number  are  so  much  added  evi- 
dence to  the  essential  soundness  of 
the  industrial  system  which  can  sup- 
port them. 

The  same  is  true  of  drunkenness 
and  licentiousness.  There  are  obvi- 
ously a  great  many  things  one  cannot 
do  who  walks  in  Jesus'  Way  of  a 
considerate  love  to  all  whom  his  acts 
affect,  and  who  would  save  for  others 
the  pure,  happy  home  life  he  so  much 
values  for  himself  If  you  call  that 
sacrifice,  why  then  the  Christian  life 
is  sacrificial  at  these  points;  for  it  is 
on  the  renunciation  of  these  cruel 
and  costly  pleasures  that  all  domestic 
and  social  life  worth  living  rests  as  on 


SACRIFICE  139 

a  rock.  The  pure  lives  and  happy 
homes  which  such  self-control  and 
self-sacrifice  have  made  possible  are 
the  crowning  example  of  what  those 
who  walk  in  Jesus'  Way  have  done 
to  save  others  with  themselves,  and 
promote  the  glory  of  the  Father  and 
the  welfare  of  the  world. 

The  principle  of  sacrifice,  in  some 
form  or  other,  is,  as  we  have  seen,  in- 
herent in  human  finitude.  The  cross 
of  Christ  simply  brings  this  principle 
to  its  ultimate  application,  as  a  choice 
between  the  sacrifice  of  others  for  our 
own  mean,  sensual,  and  selfish  ends,  and 
the  sacrifice  of  what  is  selfish,  sensual, 
and  mean  in  ourselves  for  the  glory 
of  the  loving  Father  and  the  highest 
good  of  all.  Sacrifice  we  must  as 
often  as  we  act.     Jesus  bids  us  sacri- 


140  JESUS^    WAY 

fice  the  low  for  the  high,  the  sensuous 
so  far  as  it  conflicts  with  the  spiritual, 
the  little  and  transient  for  the  infinite 
and  the  eternal,  the  partial  aspect  for 
the  organic  whole. 

This  principle,  therefore,  once  for 
all  divides  the  world  into  two  oppos- 
ing camps.  On  the  one  hand  is  the 
camp  of  those  who  save  themselves 
by  greed,  at  cost  of  others'  privation ; 
by  corruption,  at  cost  of  others'  op- 
pression ;  by  lust,  at  cost  of  others' 
anguish;  by  dissipation,  at  cost  of 
others'  misery;  by  falsehood,  at  cost 
of  others'  distrust ;  by  cruelty,  at  cost 
of  others'  suffering ;  by  unkindness,  at 
cost  of  others'  tears. 

Over  against  all  this,  rightly  intelli- 
gible only  in  sharp  contrast  with  it, 
is  Jesus'  Way.     This  is  the  camp  of 


SACRIFICE  141 

those  who  save  the  interests  of  others 
by  scorning  to  shirk,  or  cheat,  or  he,  or 
hold  back  unpopular  truth ;  by  fidel- 
ity that  gets  no  immediate  apprecia- 
tion ;  by  perseverance  that  receives  no 
outward  encouragement ;  by  endur- 
ance that  attracts  no  public  notice ; 
by  ten  thousand  nameless,  unnoticed 
acts  of  unsuspected  daily  self-sacrifice 
for  others'  happiness,  and  for  social 
order,  domestic  peace,  and  public 
good ;  by  suffering  on  behalf  of  oth- 
ers' sins  which  remains  a  sacred  secret 
locked  within  the  silent  sufferer's  heart. 
These  men  and  women  who,  in  the 
arduous  toil  of  great  official  responsi- 
bility or  in  the  obscure  drudgery  of 
humble  homes,  in  the  joy  of  mutual 
affection  or  in  cheerful  renunciation 
of  the  tenderest  happiness   that  has 


142  JESUS'    WAY 

touched  their  lonely  hearts,  in  great 
wealth  enjoyed  without  selfishness  or 
effeminacy  or  in  grinding  poverty  en- 
dured without  envy  or  hardening  of 
heart,  bear  cheerfully  the  cross  of  lov- 
ing service  to  the  people  the  Father 
has  placed  in  their  care  and  faithful 
performance  of  the  duty  that  He  lays 
upon  them,  —  these  are  the  salt  of 
the  earth  and  the  light  of  the  world; 
these,  like  their  Master,  are  the  re- 
deemers of  society  and  the  saviors  of 
mankind. 


CHAPTER  X 

REVELATION  :     THE  JUDGMENT  OF 
THE   WAY 


"  But  there  is  nothing  covered  up,  that  shall  not  be  re- 
vealed :   and  hid,  that  shall  not  be  known,"      Luke  xii.  2. 

"  Then  shall  the  King  say  unto  them  on  his  right  hand, 
Come,  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  pre- 
pared for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world  :  for  I  was  an 
hungered,  and  ye  gave  me  meat :  I  was  thirsty,  and  ye  gave 
me  drink  :  I  was  a  stranger,  and  ye  took  me  in  j  naked, 
and  ye  clothed  me  :  I  was  sick,  and  ye  visited  me  :  I  was 
in  prison,  and  ye  came  unto  me.  Then  shall  the  righteous 
answer  him,  saying.  Lord,  when  saw  we  thee  an  hungered,  and 
fed  thee  ?  or  athirst,  and  gave  thee  drink  ?  And  when  saw 
we  thee  a  stranger,  and  took  thee  in  ?  or  naked,  and  clothed 
thee  ?  And  when  saw  we  thee  sick,  or  in  prison,  and  came 
unto  thee  ?  And  the  King  shaU  answer  and  say  unto  them. 
Verily  I  say  unto  you.  Inasmuch  as  ye  did  it  unto  one  of 
these  my  brethren,  even  these  least,  ye  did  it  unto  me." 
Matthew  XXV.  34-40. 

*'  Therefore  by  their  fruits  ye  shall  know  them.  Not 
every  one  that  saith  unto  me.  Lord,  Lord,  shall  enter  into 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  ;  but  he  that  doeth  the  wUl  of  my 
Father  which  is  in  heaven.  Many  will  say  to  me  in  that 
day.  Lord,  Lord,  did  we  not  prophesy  in  thy  name,  and  by 
thy  name  cast  out  devUs,  and  by  thy  name  do  many  mighty 
•works  ?  And  then  will  I  profess  unto  them,  I  never  knew 
you:  depart  from  me,  ye  that  work  iniquity."  Matthew 
vii.  20-23. 

*'  But  if  that  servant  shall  say  in  his  heart.  My  lord  de- 
layeth  his  coming  ;  and  shall  begin  to  beat  the  menservants 
and  the  maidservants,  and  to  eat  and  drink,  and  to  be  drunken  j 
the  lord  of  that  servant  shall  come  in  a  day  when  he  expect- 
eth  not,  and  in  an  hour  when  he  knojveth  not,  and  shall 
cut  him  asunder,  and  appoint  his  portion  with  the  unfaithful. 
And  that  servant,  which  knew  his  lord's  will,  and  made  not 
ready,  nor  did  according  to  his  wiU,  shall  be  beaten  with 
many  stripes  ;  but  he  that  knew  not,  and  did  things  worthy 
of  stripes,  shall  be  beaten  with  few  stripes. ' '  Luke  xii,  45- 
48, 


CHAPTER   X 

revelation:    the    judgment  of  the 

WAY 

The  judgment  of  Jesus  is  simply 
showing  a  man  what  he  is,  in  the 
light  of  what  he  ought  to  bfc.  This 
revelation  of  a  man  to  himself  steals 
upon  one  unawares,  like  a  thief  in  the 
night.  The  needs  of  some  lowly  and 
suffering  fellow  man,  the  secret  decision 
between  some  costly  right  act  which 
will  pass  unobserved  and  some  profit- 
able wrong  act  which  will  escape  de- 
tection, are  the  times  that  try  men's 
souls  and  bring  out  whether  or  not 
they   be   in  the    Way.     The  Judge 


146  JESUS'    WAY 

comes  to  us  in  the  disguise  of  the 
lowliest  of  our  fellows  that  claims  our 
courtesy,  our  kindness,  and  our  con- 
sideration. As  we  treat  the  least  of 
the  Lord's  brothers,  precisely  so  we 
treat  the  Lord  himself  Hence  judg- 
ment is  inevitable.  It  is  being  passed 
upon  us  all  the  time.  There  will  be 
no  question  on  the  final  examination 
paper  that  has  not  been  asked  us  again 
and  again  in  the  daily  intercourse  6{ 
life.  Our  answers  are  all  written  in 
advance,  according  as  we  have  done 
or  failed  to  do  what  love  requires 
toward  these  brethren  of  ours,  who 
are  so  dear  to  the  Lord  that  service 
to  them  is  the  only  service  to  him- 
self for  which  he  greatly  cares.  This 
judgment  simply  reveals  outwardly, 
so  that  we  and  all  who  behold  us  shall 


REVELATION  147 

see  precisely  how  much  or  how  little 
of  God's  love  for  men  is  really  in  our 
hearts.  If  love  be  there,  it  will  shine 
forth  as  the  stars,  forever  and  ever. 
If  pride,  lust,  selfishness,  unkindness, 
avarice,  are  there,  they  cannot  be  con- 
cealed ;  but  in  contrast  to  the  pure 
white  light  of  love  that  shines  in  the 
heavenly  Way,  they  will  stand  out  in 
undreamed-of  hideousness  and  shame. 
Yet  this  judgment  will  be  propor- 
tioned to  light  and  opportunity.  He 
who  was  mean  and  sensual  because  he 
knew  no  better  will  feel  less  guilt 
and  shame  than  one  who  had  seen  the 
pure  light  of  love  in  the  face  of  Jesus 
Christ  or  some  of  his  faithful  follow- 
ers, and  then,  in  spite  of  that,  had 
been  base  and  cruel.  The  stripes  will 
be  few  or  many  according  as  the  light 


148  JESUS'   WAY 

against  which  one  sinned  was  dim  or 
bright.  Judgment  simply  sends  a 
man,  as  it  did  Judas,  to  his  own  place  ; 
puts  him  where  he  belongs,  —  in  the 
kingdom  of  heaven,  if  he  lives  a  life 
of  love ;  in  the  outer  darkness,  where 
there  is  weeping  and  gnashing  of  teeth, 
if  he  lives  a  life  of  selfishness  and  hate. 
This  transparency  of  character  which 
results  from  setting  a  man  where  the 
light  of  love  falls  on  him,  as  it  does 
on  all  who  come  in  contact  with 
Jesus'  Way,  involves  a  radical  rever- 
sal of  all  human  judgments  which  are 
based  solely  on  rank,  wealth,  reputa- 
tion, and  profession ;  making  the  last 
in  the  world's  estimation  the  first  in 
the  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  making 
those  who  are  first  in  their  own  esteem 
last  in  the  favor  of  God;    showing 


REVELATION  149 

that  the  poor,  if  they  are  in  the  Way, 
are  rich  and  happy,  while  the  rich,  if 
they  are  out  of  it,  are  poor  and  miser- 
able. 

This  judgment  is  obviously  auto- 
matic. There  is  nothing  arbitrary 
about  it.  He  who  walks  in  the  Way 
enters  the  kingdom  as  a  matter  of 
course.  He  who  loves  shares  God's 
life,  which  is  love.  He  who  declines 
to  walk  in  the  Way  of  course  never 
reaches  the  heaven  to  which  it  is  the 
only  entrance,  strait  and  narrow  at 
that.  He  would  be  more  miserable 
if  he  got  in  than  he  is  outside ;  for 
the  brighter  the  light  of  love  that 
should  shine  upon  his  sordid  and  sen- 
sual soul,  the  greater  would  its  shame 
and  ugliness  appear. 

There  will  be  no  more  chance  to 


150  JESUS'    WAY 

complain  of  one's  fate  than  for  bad 
fish  to  resent  their  exclusion  from  the 
basket  of  good  fish,  or  the  goat  its  not 
being  classed  as  a  sheep,  or  chaff  and 
tares  for  not  being  stored  in  the  barn 
with  the  wheat.  Judgment  simply 
brings  to  light  what  the  man  has  been 
doing  to  himself  all  the  time.  There 
is  no  favoritism.  Inherent]  excellence 
gets  its  full  premium,  and  the  lack 
of  it  has  to  pay  the  last  farthing  of 
inexorable  penalty.  Not  profession, 
not  achievement,  but  effort,  and  the 
motive  underneath  the  effort,  is  the 
basis  of  award;  for  that  reveals  the 
spring  and  core  of  character.  Out- 
ward results  enter  into  the  judgment 
indirectly,  as  revealing  the  genuine- 
ness and  thoroughness  of  the  inner 
motive;   for  the   earnest  purpose   in. 


REVELATION  151 

the  end  always  manages  to  make  it- 
self outwardly  effective.  Every  honest 
effort  counts  in  the  final  score,  though 
it  may  be  represented  negatively  by 
making  a  bad  situation  less  bad  than 
it  otherwise  would  have  been,  instead 
of  making  it  positively  and  perfectly 
good. 

As  we  have  seen  already,  one  who 
should  see  the  beauty  of  Jesus'  Way, 
and  then  should  deny  him,  would 
thereby  reveal  his  unworthihess  to  be 
his  disciple,  and  exclude  himself  from 
the  kingdom.  Yet  many  who  never 
heard  or  thought  of  Jesus  as  an  object 
of  personal  devotion,  by  sharing  un- 
consciously in  his  spirit  of  love  and 
service  to  the  persons  with  whom  they 
chance  to  be  thrown,  find  out  for 
themselves  the  same  Way  which  Jesus 


152  JESUS'   WAY 

revealed  to  the  world.  All  such  are 
in  Jesus'  Way,  although  they  recog- 
nize him  not ;  and  theirs  is  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.  He  that  is  not  against 
Jesus  is  for  him.  Those  who  do  the 
works  of  his  Way  are  his  unconscious 
disciples. 

On  the  other  hand,  all  the  indolent 
and  insincere,  the  corrupt  and  cruel, 
the  proud  and  hard-hearted,  whether 
they  be  clergymen  or  laymen,  church- 
men or  infidels,  magistrates  or  crimi- 
nals, employers  or  employees,  in  spite 
of  their  professions  and  their  respect- 
ability, will  be  banished  to  the  place 
to  which  their  inherent  lovelessness 
dooms  them  in  the  words,  "  I  never 
knew  you ;  depart  from  me,  ye  that 
work  iniquity."  The  outer  darkness 
is  the   shadow   love  casts  when  one 


REVELATION  153 

refuses  to  let  it  shine  through  him; 
and  the  greatness  of  that  darkness  is 
due  to  the  fact  that  God  lighted  the 
capacity  of  love  in  his  soul,  and  he 
has  let  it  go  out  for  lack  of  the  oil  of 
disinterested  service,  or  else  has  delib- 
erately put  it  out  by  the  extinguisher 
of  self-indulgence. 


CHAPTER  XI 

BLESSEDNESS  :    THE      REWARD      OF 
THE  WAY 


"  But  seek  ye  first  his  kingdom,  and  his  righteousness  ; 
and  all  these  things  shall  be  added  unto  you."  Matthew 
vi.  33. 

**  Then  answered  Peter  and  said  unto  him,  Lo,  we  have 
left  all,  and  followed  thee  ;  what  then  shall  we  have  ?  And 
Jesus  said  unto  them,  Every  one  that  hath  left  houses,  or 
brethren,  or  sisters,  or  father,  or  mother,  or  children,  or 
lands,  for  my  name's  sake,  shall  receive  a  hundredfold,  and 
shall  inherit  eternal  life.  But  many  shall  be  last  that  are 
first;  and  first  that  are  last."      Matthew  xix.  27,  29,  30. 

*'  A  certain  woman  out  of  the  multitude  lifted  up  her 
voice,  and  said  unto  him.  Blessed  is  the  womb  that  bare 
thee,  and  the  breasts  which  thou  didst  suck.  But  he  said. 
Yea  rather,  blessed  are  they  that  hear  the  word  of  God, 
and  keep  it."      Luke  xi.  27,  28. 

"  And  turning  to  the  disciples,  he  said  privately.  Blessed 
are  the  eyes  which  see  the  things  that  ye  see  :  for  I  say  unto 
you,  that  many  prophets  and  kings  desired  to  see  the  things 
which  ye  see,  and  saw  them  not."      Luke  x.  23,  24. 

"  Blessed  are  the  poor  in  spirit  :  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom 
of  heaven . 

'  *  Blessed  are  they  that  mourn  :  for  they  shall  be  com- 
forted. 

**  Blessed  are  the  meek  :  for  they  shall  inherit  the  earth. 

' '  Blessed  are  they  that  hunger  and  thirst  after  righteous- 
ness :  for  they  shall  be  filled. 

* '  Blessed  are  the  merciful  :   for  they  shall  obtain  mercy. 

**  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see  God. 

'*  Blessed  are  the  peacemakers  :  for  they  shall  be  called 
sons  of  God. 

"  Blessed  are  they  that  have  been  persecuted  for  righteous- 
ness' sake  :  for  theirs  is  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

"  Blessed  are  ye  when  men  shall  reproach  you,  and  perse- 
cute you,  and  say  aU  manner  of  evil  against  you  falsely,  for 
my  sake.  Rejoice,  and  be  exceeding  glad  :  for  great  is  your 
reward  in  heaven  :  for  so  persecuted  they  the  prophets  which 
were  before  you."     Matthew  v.  3-12. 


CHAPTER  XI 

blessedness:    the    reward   of    the 

WAY 

Jesus'  Way  is  no  exception  to  the 
hedonistic  paradox  that  pleasure  eludes 
those  who  seek  for  it  directly,  and 
that  immediate  concern  for  rewards, 
honors,  and  emoluments,  because  it 
withdraws  one  from  the  singleness  of 
devotion  to  one's  work  and  service,  at 
the  same  time  robs  one  of  the  rewards 
which  single-eyed  service  and  self-for- 
getful work  alone  deserve  and  insure. 
To  be  in  the  Way,  to  have  one's  name 
written  in  the  book  of  this  heavenly 
life,  is  its  own  sufficient  great  reward. 


158  JESUS'    WAY 

Therein  the  true  disciple  will  rejoice ; 
not  in  the  high  seat  he  gains,  not 
even  in  the  amount  of  work  he  is 
able  to  accomplish.  So  vast  is  the 
work  to  be  done,  so  little  is  the  con- 
tribution the  best  of  us  can  make,  that 
having  done  all,  we  shall  count  our- 
selves unprofitable  servants.  We  shall 
rest  our  expectations  not  on  our  own 
merits,  but  on  the  goodness  of  the 
Lord,  who  weighs  the  motive  rather 
than  the  achievement,  and  gives  to 
first  and  last  alike  the  equal  compen- 
sation of  knowing  and  feeling  that 
they  are  accepted  and  approved  work- 
men in  his  vineyard,  heirs  of  all  his 
goodness  and  love  they  are  able  to 
appropriate. 

To  demand   or  expect  any  other 
precedence  than  preeminence  of  use- 


BLESSEDNESS  159 

fulness  is  to  miss  the  Spirit  of  Jesus 
altogether,  and  hence  to  be  not  first 
but  last  in  his  Way.  The  only  great- 
ness Jesus  recognizes  is  greatness  of 
service ;  and  the  chief  joy  he  experi- 
enced himself  and  recommended  to 
others  was  the  joy  of  bringing  lost 
sheep  out  of  their  cold,  loveless  lives 
into  the  warm  light  and  life  of  his 
fold. 

If,  however,  seeking  rewards,  here 
or  hereafter,  is  the  sure  way  to  miss 
them,  it  is  equally  sure  that  he  who 
seeks  first  the  kingdom  of  God  and 
his  righteousness  will  incidentally  get 
all  the  good  things  that  he  needs. 
Single-eyed  devotion  to  the  service 
of  God  and  one's  fellow  men  brings 
this  about  in  two  ways.  Through 
withdrawing  one's   mind   from   him- 


i6o  JESUS'    WAY 

self  and  his  individual'  appetites  and 
ambitions,  it  diminishes  enormously 
his  demand  on  the  world,  or  what  Car- 
lyle  calls  the  denominator  of  life;  and 
by  increasing  his  efficiency  and  at- 
tractiveness to  others,  it  brings  in  spir- 
itual, social,  and  ultimately  material 
returns  which  unscrupulous,  heartless 
self-seeking  never  could  gain,  and  so 
increases  the  numerator  of  life.  While 
it  is  doubtless  true  that  people  who 
call  themselves  Christians  are  deprived 
of  many  things  which  they  deem  es- 
sential to  their  happiness  ;  while  acci- 
dent, bereavement,  misfortune,  loss, 
deprivation,  and  the  injurious  conse- 
quences of  others'  sicknesses  and  sins 
fall  on  saint  and  sinner  alike;  while 
well-meaning  people  who  look  anx- 
iously ahead  and  take  the  whole  bur- 


BLESSEDNESS  i6i 

den  of  the  remainder  of  their  Hfetime 
on  the  shoulders  of  each  successive 
hour  are  unquestionably  able  to  pile 
up  mountains  of  misery  for  them- 
selves and  all  who  are  so  unfortunate 
as  to  be  their  relatives  and  friends ;  — 
nevertheless,  the  poorest  man,  the  most 
maltreated  woman,  who  begins  each 
day  with  the  eager  desire  to  fill  that 
day  with  loving  service  to  God,  and 
those  whom  He  has  placed  under  this 
person's  influence  and  care,  will  find, 
in  looking  back  at  evening  on  the 
finished  day,  that  it  has  not  been  with- 
out the  opportunity  for  such  service 
and  the  means  for  its  effective  execu- 
tion ;  and  if  these  opportunities  and 
means  have  been  improved,  that  no 
such  day,  even  the  darkest,  has  been 
altogether  destitute  of  the  brightness 


i62  JESUS'    WAY 

of  nature,  the  love  of  man,  and  the 
peace  and  blessing  of  God. 

Jesus'  words  on  this  point  are  often 
considered  extravagant,  unpractical, 
Utopian.  So  indeed  they  are,  if  ap- 
plied to  the  natural  man,  whether 
nominal  Christian  or  not,  in  a  merely- 
natural  society,  where  self-seeking  is 
the  only  impulse  and  competition  is 
the  only  law.  As  proclaimed  by  Je- 
sus, however,  these  warnings  against 
anxiety,  these  assurances  of  spiritual, 
social,  and  material  goods,  are  ad- 
dressed to  those  who  are  his  genuine 
disciples,  in  a  community  composed 
of  disciples  as  genuine  and  generous 
as  themselves.  Considered  in  this 
their  proper  setting,  these  sayings  of 
Jesus,  so  far  from  being  paradoxical, 
are   axiomatic.     Suppose  a  town  or 


BLESSEDNESS  163 

ward  of  five  thousand  people,  all  of 
whom  begin  each  day  with  a  grateful, 
loving,  earnest  desire  to  use  their 
talents,  powers,  influence,  and  wealth 
for  God's  greatest  glory  and  man's 
highest  good :  would  any  one  of 
them  have  the  slightest  cause  to 
worry,  or  would  the  most  feeble  and 
unfortunate  member  of  such  a  com- 
munity, even  if  it  were  outwardly  or- 
ganized on  our  present  competitive 
industrial  basis,  ever  come  to  material 
want,  or  social  neglect,  or  spiritual 
despair*?  It  would  be  impossible. 
Some  fellow  Christian  would  be  the 
kindly  medium  through  whom  the 
unfortunate  man's  need  of  these  things 
would  find  relief  and  satisfaction.  If 
a  half,  or  a  fourth,  or  even  a  tenth 
of  such   a  community   were   bound 


i64  JESUS'    WAY 

together  in  such  a  spirit,  this  remnant 
would  be  able  to  cope  with  the  worst 
consequences  of  the  sin  and  selfishness 
of  the  other  half,  or  three  quarters,  or 
nine  tenths.  Where  God's  kingdom 
really  comes,  there  comes  salvation,  — 
for  its  members  first,  and  for  all  others 
in  proportion  to  their  receptivity  and 
the  community's  resources.  If  Jesus' 
promises  regarding  these  things  are 
not  fulfilled  in  any  particular  town  or 
city,  it  is  because  the  kingdom  in  that 
town  or  city  is  not  yet  fully  come. 
We  don't  quite  believe  that  very 
many  other  people  are  really  living 
in  Jesus'  Way ;  and  too  often  the  rea- 
son for  this  distrust  of  the  essential 
Christlikeness  of  the  lives  of  others  is 
because  we  are  not  entirely  devoted 
to  Jesus'  Way   ourselves.     Here  as 


BLESSEDNESS  165 

everywhere  we  need  to  remember 
that  the  judgment  we  pass,  even  un- 
consciously, on  our  brethren  is  the 
condemnation  of  ourselves.  If  we 
were  altogether  absorbed  in  Jesus' 
Way  ourselves,  we  should  detect  by 
subtle  sympathy  the  indications  of  the 
same  blessed  Way  in  hosts  of  our 
fellows  whom  we  now  set  down 
as  "  worldly  "  men  and  women,  or  at 
best  mere  nominal  Christians,  having 
the  form  of  godliness,  but  without  its 
real  power. 

That  the  Way  does  not  insure  the 
blessings  Jesus  attached  to  it,  where 
it  is  not  present,  or  where  men  do 
not  believe  in  it,  or  where  they  dis- 
trust each  other,  is  not  surprising,  and 
is  no  valid  objection  to  his  claims  for 
it.     Democracy   does   not  confer  all 


i66  JESUS'    WAY 

the  benefits  claimed  for  that  form  of 
poUtical  government  on  every  ward 
of  every  American  city.  But  the 
blame  rests  not  with  the  democratic 
form  of  government,  but  with  the  men 
who  for  selfish  ends  subvert  its  prin- 
ciples. Democracy  worked  by  men 
who  are  fit  for  it,  and  who  live  up  to 
its  high  requirements  of  public  spirit 
and  civic  devotion,  will  do  all  that 
the  most  enthusiastic  advocate  ever 
claimed  for  it.  Precisely  so,  Jesus' 
Way  of  life  will  give  to  every  mem- 
ber of  his  community  all  the  bless- 
ings he  ever  promised,  provided  it  be 
a  genuine  community  of  those  who 
make  the  love  of  God  and  the  kindly 
care  of  one  another  their  prime  con- 
cern. Anything  less  than  that  is  less 
than  Jesus'  Way,  and  must  not  be 


BLESSEDNESS  167 

accepted  as  a  test  of  the  truthfulness 
of  his  account  of  what  his  Way  will 
do  for  those  who  earnestly  and  hon- 
estly accept  it. 

The  beatitudes  are  obvious  corolla- 
ries from  the  principles  of  the  Way. 
Since  love  is  the  life  of  the  Way,  and 
since  the  opportunities  for  love  are 
infinite  and  omnipresent,  no  true  dis- 
ciple of  the  Way  can  possibly  miss 
his  blessedness.  The  more  of  love  in 
the  heart,  the  more  of  blessedness  will 
there  be  in  the  soul. 

The  poor  in  spirit  are  blessed,  be- 
cause their  lowly  hearts  have  room  in 
them  for  that  outgoing  love  to  others 
which  is  the  life  of  the  kingdom  of 
heaven. 

Even  the  mourner,  if  his  love  is 
deep  and  wide  and  universal,  cannot, 


i68  JESUS'    WAY 

even  by  personal  bereavement  or  in- 
dividual disappointment,  be  shut  out 
from  the  great  life  of  love,  and  the 
comfort  love  always  contrives  to  find 
in  making  others  happy,  even  while 
its  own  heart  aches  in  the  sadness  of 
irreparable  loss. 

The  vain  and  conceited,  just  because 
they  centre  their  interests  and  affec- 
tions on  their  little  petty  selves,  and 
what  they  are  or  fancy  themselves  to 
be,  obviously  live  a  poor,  cramped, 
stunted,  shriveled,  impoverished  life. 
But  the  meek,  who  think  little  of 
themselves,  and  turn  admiring  and 
affectionate  eyes  on  others,  thereby 
gain  a  boundless  career  for  their  de- 
votion, and  have  the  whole  earth  for 
their  inheritance. 

Those   who   hunger  and  thirst  for 


BLESSEDNESS  169 

the  finite  material  objects  of  human 
competition  will  naturally  have  re- 
peated occasion  to  lament  the  small- 
ness  of  the  share  of  these  goods  they 
get.  But  there  is  no  finitude  in  right- 
eousness, no  competition  for  the  spir- 
itual gifts  of  kindness  and  goodwill. 
Any  man  can  have  all  these  he  asks  for. 
He  has  but  to  knock,  and  the  door 
that  leads  to  these  treasures  is  thrown 
wide  open.  This  hunger  and  thirst  are 
in  constant  process  of  fulfillment  for 
every  one  who  walks  in  Jesus'  Way. 

The  merciless,  of  course,  can  expect 
no  mercy.  But  the  merciful,  like  mag- 
nets, draw  mercy  to  themselves. 

The  impure  heart  can  no  more  see 
God  than  darkness  can  comprehend 
the  light.  The  pure  heart,  on  the 
other  hand,  sees  God  as  the  infinite 


lyo  JESUS'    WAY 

Source  and  Inspirer  of  every  pure 
experience  in  itself,  and  in  the  puri- 
fied souls  of  others. 

The  man  who  stirs  up  strife,  picks 
quarrels  with  his  neighbors,  and  carries 
a  chip  upon  his  shoulder  everywhere, 
naturally  will  know  little  of  the  peace 
of  God  which  passeth  understanding. 
On  the  contrary,  the  peacemakers,  in 
turning  away  wrath  by  the  soft  answer, 
in  forgiving  until  seventy  times  seven, 
in  patient  endurance  of  the  slights  and 
wounds  and  bruises  incidental  to  close 
contact  in  domestic,  social,  business, 
and  political  life,  will  have  the  very 
joy  of  the  Father  in  seeing  kindness 
take  the  place  of  cruelty,  love  cast  out 
hate,  and  happiness  come  in  where 
wretchedness  goes  out ;  and  will  real- 
ize therein  their  own  sonship  to  God. 


BLESSEDNESS  171 

Even  persecution  for  the  sake  of  the 
Master  and  his  Way  will  not  rob  the 
disciple  of  his  blessedness ;  for  even 
through  such  suffering,  serenely  ac- 
cepted and  cheerfully  endured,  he  will 
be  drawn  into  sympathy  with  the 
prophets  and  martyrs  of  all  ages,  and 
share  the  deepest  experience  of  the 
crucified  Master  himself  To  be  even 
as  his  Master,  in  this  as  in  all  respects, 
will  be  not  the  dread  but  the  desire 
of  every  true  disciple. 

What  blessedness  is,  as  Jesus  un- 
derstood it,  we  can  best  understand 
by  approaching  it  through  the  lower 
steps  of  pleasure  and  happiness. 

Pleasure  is  the  gratification  of 
chance  desire.  The  getting  of  any- 
thing we  want  brings  pleasure;  and 
the  way  to  secure  pleasures  is  to  de- 


172  JESUS'    WAY 

velop  a  great  variety  of  eager,  active 
interests :  in  work  and  play ;  in  study 
and  art ;  in  business  and  society.  The 
more  desires  we  have,  provided  we 
are  able  to  gratify  them,  the  more 
pleasures  we  enjoy. 

Happiness  depends  on  the  progres- 
sive, systematic  gratification  of  desires 
which  have  been  reduced  to  unity 
through  some  central  principle.  Since 
doing  good  is  an  interest  in  which  we 
have  to  fight  no  competitors,  and  in 
which  God,  the  forces  of  the  universe, 
and  the  goodwill  of  all  right-minded 
men  are  on  our  side,  the  desire  to  do 
good  is  the  active  interest  most  capa- 
ble of  continuous,  progressive,  syste- 
matic satisfaction,  and  consequently 
brings  most  happiness. 

For  righteousness  is  simply  fitness ; 


BLESSEDNESS  173 

goodness  is  what  right-minded  people 
want  to  have  done.  And  the  oppor- 
tunities for  doing  it  are  as  numerous 
as  the  situations  in  which  one  is  placed. 
Righteousness  takes  an  infinite  variety 
of  forms  to  meet  the  varied  claims  of 
situations  and  persons  upon  us.  In 
the  home  it  is  kindness ;  in  business  it 
is  honesty;  in  society  it  is  courtesy; 
in  politics  it  is  public  spirit;  in  work 
it  is  thoroughness;  in  play  it  is  fair- 
ness ;  toward  the  fortunate  it  is  con- 
gratulation; toward  the  unfortunate 
it  is  pity;  toward  the  wicked  it  is 
resistance ;  toward  the  righteous  it  is 
active  support ;  toward  the  weak  it 
is  help ;  toward  the  strong  it  is  trust ; 
•toward  the  penitent  it  is  forgiveness; 
toward  God  it  is  reverence  and  love. 
Now  the  man  whose  interest  lies  in 


174  JESUS'    WAY 

so  many-sided  and  omnipresent  a 
thing  as  righteousness  finds  opportu- 
nities for  satisfaction,  and  therefore  for 
happiness,  every  moment  of  his  life. 
No  man  who  is  more  than  a  hermit 
can  pass  a  single  day  without  many  a 
chance  to  make  a  glad  heart  still  more 
happy  or  a  sad  one  less  lonely;  to  set 
a  wrong  will  right  or  confirm  a  right 
will  in  its  strenuous  endeavor ;  to  do 
some  hard  task  so  well  that  the  world 
shall  be  the  better  for  it ;  to  bear  some 
severe  trial  so  bravely  that  all  who  see 
shall  be  strengthened.  Every  deed 
we  do,  every  word  we  speak,  involves 
a  more  or  less  of  fitness  to  the  highest 
possibilities  of  the  situation ;  in  other 
words,  gives  a  chance  to  win  the  happi- 
ness that  always  goes  with  doing  good. 
To   be  sure,  these  chances  to  do 


BLESSEDNESS  175 

good  do  not  stop  and  wait  for  us  to 
improve  them.  They  must  be  taken 
on  the  run,  or  they  are  gone  forever. 
As  the  hunter  takes  his  chances  of 
a  hit  or  a  miss  when  he  fires,  and  is 
sure  to  lose  his  game  if  he  hesitates 
or  delays,  so  he  who  would  do  good, 
whether  in  business,  or  politics,  or  in 
the  more  difficult  and  delicate  sphere 
of  personal  influence,  must  say  the 
right  word  and  do  the  right  thing 
instantly ;  without  waiting  to  be  sure 
how  it  is  coming  out.  A  quick  esti- 
mate of  probabilities,  a  flashing  intui- 
tion of  difficulty  whichever  course  is 
taken,  the  certainty  of  being  criticised 
in  any  case,  and  then  the  swift,  irre- 
vocable determination  to  do  one's  best 
and  leave  results  with  God,  —  all  this, 
indeed,  the  righteous  man  who  will 


176  JESUS'    WAY 

be  happy  in  the  doing  of  righteous- 
ness must  have.  Given  this  element 
of  courage,  and  promptness  to  take 
risks  on  the  strongest  probabilities, 
which  are  the  only  guidance  granted 
to  us  mortals,  and  every  man  who 
means  to  do  right  may  count  on  sub- 
stantial happiness  as  the  sure  reward 
alike  of  his  successful  and  of  his  at 
times  mistaken  efforts  to  do  right. 
For,  as  Stevenson  says,  "  All  who  have 
meant  good  work  have  done  good 
work,  even  though  they  die  before 
they  have  time  to  sign  it."  The  hap- 
piness which  comes  of  meaning  to  do 
good  work  and  accomplishing  it  up 
to  the  measure  of  our  powers  is  within 
the  reach  of  every  man  who  intently 
and  eagerly  improves  his  chances  the 
moment  they  appear. 


BLESSEDNESS  177 

Still  we  have  not  quite  reached 
blessedness.  Active  interests  of  all 
sorts  give  pleasures.  Interests  that 
are  generous,  universal,  non-competi- 
tive, of  which  the  interest  in  righteous- 
ness is  the  great  example,  bring  the 
enduring,  systematic  satisfaction  which 
we  call  happiness.  Yet  blessedness  is 
something  more. 

What  this  something  more  is,  we 
learn,  in  human  relations,  alas !  too 
often  only  through  its  loss.  When 
father,  mother,  wife,  husband,  matur- 
ing child,  or  trusted  friend,  to  whom 
our  aspirations,  affections,  even  our 
very  sins,  have  been  known  by  subtle 
sympathy  so  well  as  to  make  verbal 
confession  superfluous,  is  taken  sud- 
denly away,  then  we  know,  through 
the  sense  of  irreparable  loss,  the  deep, 


178  JESUS'    WAY 

the  infinite  difference  between  the  best 
that  either  a  host  of  scattered  plea- 
sures, or  even  the  happiness  that  goes 
with  a  Hfe  of  constant  usefulness,  can 
give,  and  that  supreme  satisfaction  of 
sympathy  with  one  we  love  for  which 
we  reserve  the  third  and  highest  name 
of  blessedness. 

This  blessedness,  of  which  we  get 
glimpses  in  hours  of  intimacy  with 
trusted  human  friends,  and  which 
every  one  who  has  experienced  it 
knows  to  be  as  far  above  mere  plea- 
sure unshared,  or  happiness  unreflected 
in  the  sympathy  of  those  we  love,  as 
the  heavens  are  higher  than  the  earth, 
—  this  the  devout  man  finds  in  com- 
munion and  fellowship  with  God. 
This  high  and  precious  blessedness,  to 
be  sure,  does  not  fall  into  the  lap  of 


BLESSEDNESS  179 

the  spiritually  indolent.  To  get  it,  one 
must  exercise  much  of  that  union  of 
appreciation  and  appropriation  which 
Jesus  calls  faith,  and  which  we  ex- 
press in  prayer.  To  retain  it,  one 
must  make  his  communion  with  God 
solid  and  real  by  faithful  and,  if  need 
be,  sacrificial  doing  of  God's  righteous 
will.  To  increase  it  year  by  year, 
one  must  cooperate  with  others  in 
common  efforts  for  social  and  spirit- 
ual ends.  I  grant  this  cultivation  of 
the  friendship  and  sympathy  of  God 
through  private  prayer  and  personal 
work  and  social  endeavor  is  a  hard, 
slow  process,  and  does  not  bring  its 
reward  of  supreme  blessedness  all  at 
once. 

Yet,  to  those  who  seek  God  in  these 
earnest,  practical,  social  ways,  blessed- 


i8o  JESUS'    WAY 

ness  as  real  as  that  we  find  in  the 
most  intimate  human  affections  does 
come;  it  comes  to  stay;  and  it  in- 
creases as  the  years  go  by.  Such  a 
man  knows  that  God  is  with  him, 
approving  what  he  tries  to  do.  He 
knows  that  Jesus'  great  work,  begun 
nineteen  hundred  years  ago,  is  being 
promoted  by  his  efforts,  and  that 
through  sharing  Jesus'  work  here  and 
now,  he  enters  into  fellowship  with 
him  forevermore.  He  knows  that  in 
his  efforts  to  make  the  world  the  pure, 
sweet,  healthy,  happy  world  God 
would  have  it,  he  has  the  sympathy 
and  support  of  all  right-minded  men 
and  women  in  whom  a  kindred  spirit 
dwells.  The  man  who  knows  these 
things,  and  carries  them  about  with 
him  as  the  great,   permanent  back- 


BLESSEDNESS  i8i 

ground  on  which  all  his  passing  suc- 
cesses and  failures,  all  his  lesser  joys 
and  sorrows,  are  thrown,  that  man 
has  the  secret  of  blessedness  in  his 
heart. 

Thus  there  are  these  three  distinct 
stages  or  levels  of  the  desirable.  There 
is  the  life  of  pleasure,  which  is  good; 
and  which  depends  on  the  cultivation 
of  a  wide  range  of  eager,  active  inter- 
ests. There  is  the  happy  life  which  is 
better;  this  depends  on  the  organ- 
ization of  life  into  permanent,  gener- 
ous interests,  which  can  be  gratified 
without  bringing  us  into  competition 
with  others  for  goods  that  are  finite 
and  limited.  Since  the  life  of  right- 
eousness and  kindness  and  goodwill 
is  boundless  in  opportunity,  and  puts 
us  not  in  competition  but  in  coopera- 


i82  JESUS'    WAY 

tion  with  our  fellow  men,  this  is  pre- 
eminently the  happy  life. 

Above  pleasure,  which  is  good, 
higher  than  happiness,  which  is  far 
better,  comes  blessedness,  which  is 
best.  This  springs  out  of  the  active 
interests  which  form  the  roots  of  plea- 
sure; it  is.  borne  on  the  stout  stalk  of 
a  righteous  life,  which  is  the  support 
of  happiness,  but  is  in  its  inmost 
essence  the  perfect  flower  that  blos- 
soms out  of  the  crowning  assurance 
that  God  looks  with  something  like 
approval  on  even  our  feeble  and  often 
mistaken  efforts  to  do  right;  that 
Christ  is  with  us  in  the  aim  and  pur- 
pose of  our  lives ;  that  all  good  men 
and  women  who  are  working  out  in 
individual  form  some  private  or  pub- 
lic portion  of  the  one  great,  common 


BLESSEDNESS  183 

social  good  are  sharing  the  same  Holy 
Spirit  which  is  the  inspiration  of 
our  hearts.  This  sense  of  the  love  of 
God  the  Father,  the  grace  of  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  and  the  communion  and 
fellowship  of  the  Holy  Spirit  is  the 
crown  of  blessedness  which,  as  a  per- 
petual benediction,  rests  on  all  who 
with  humility,  sincerity,  fidelity,  and 
reverence  walk  in  Jesus'  Way. 


CHAPTER  XII 

UNIVERSALITY:    THE   TRIUMPH   OF 
THE   WAY 


**  And  he  said,  So  is  the  kingdom  of  God,  as  if  a  man 
should  cast  seed  upon  the  earth  ;  and  should  sleep  and  rise 
night  and  day,  and  the  seed  should  spring  up  and  grow,  he 
knoweth  not  how.  The  earth  beareth  fruit  of  herself  j 
first  the  blade,  then  the  ear,  then  the  full  corn  in  the  ear. 
But  when  the  fruit  is  ripe,  straightway  he  putteth  forth  the 
sickle,  because  the  harvest  is  come."      Mark  iv.  26-29. 

*'  Every  one  therefore  which  heareth  these  words  of 
mine,  and  doeth  them,  shall  be  likened  unto  a  wise  man, 
which  built  his  house  upon  the  rock  :  and  the  rain  descended, 
and  the  floods  came,  and  the  winds  blew,  and  beat  upon 
that  house  ;  and  it  fell  not :  for  it  was  founded  upon  the 
rock."      Matthew  vii.  24,  25. 

**  The  Son  of  man  shall  send  forth  his  angels,  and  they 
shall  gather  out  of  his  kingdom  aU  things  that  cause  stum- 
bling, and  them  that  do  iniquity,  and  shall  cast  them  into 
the  furnace  of  fire  :  there  shall  be  the  weeping  and  gnashing 
of  teeth.  Then  shall  the  righteous  shine  forth  as  the  sun  in 
the  kingdom  of  their  Father.  He  that  hath  ears,  let  him 
hear."     Matthew  xiii.  41-43. 

"  But  know  this,  that  if  the  master  of  the  house  had 
known  in  what  watch  the  thief  was  coming,  he  would  have 
watched,  and  would  not  have  suffered  his  house  to  be 
broken  through.  Therefore  be  ye  also  ready  :  for  in  an 
hour  that  ye  think  not  the  Son  of  man  cometh.  Who 
then  is  the  faithful  and  wise  servant,  whom  his  lord  hath 
set  over  his  household,  to  give  them  their  food  in  due  sea- 
son ?  Blessed  is  that  servant,  whom  his  lord  when  he  com- 
eth shall  find  so  doing.  Verily  I  say  unto  you,  that  he  will 
set  him  over  all  that  he  hath."      Matthew  xxiv.  43-47. 

*'  If  therefore  they  shall  say  unto  you,  Behold,  he  is  in 
the  wilderness ;  go  not  forth  :  Behold,  he  is  in  the  inner  cham- 
bers j  believe  it  not.  For  as  the  lightning  cometh  forth 
from  the  east,  and  is  seen  even  unto  the  west ;  so  shall  be 
the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man."    Matthew  xxiv.  26,  27. 

"  In  your  patience  ye  shall  win  your  souls."  Luke  xxi. 
19. 


CHAPTER  XII 

UNIVERSALITY  :     THE    TRIUMPH    OF    THE 
WAY 

Provided  the  seed  of  a  sincere  and 
genuine  love  is  planted  in  the  heart, 
regularly  watered  by  meditation  and 
prayer,  and  fertilized  by  active  ex- 
ercise whenever  occasion  offers,  one 
need  not  worry  in  the  least  about  its 
steady  growth  and  ultimate  fruitful- 
ness.  To  dig  it  up  in  anxious  intro- 
spection is  the  greatest  of  mistakes ; 
implying  doubt  of  the  Father,  and 
distrust  of  the  nature  He  has  given  us. 
The  growth  of  Christian  character, 
like  all  vital  processes,  begins  in  com- 


i88  JESUS'    WAY 

parative  obscurity,  and  requires  con- 
siderable time.  First  the  blade,  then 
the  ear,  after  that  the  full  corn  in  the 
ear,  is  the  law  of  spiritual  as  of  biolo- 
gical evolution ;  and  we  must  be  pa- 
tient, trustful,  and  serene  during  the 
preliminary  stages,  which  are  the  only 
ones  to  which  the  best  of  us  attain  in 
this  brief  earthly  life.  The  contrast 
between  what  we  are  and  what  we 
hope  to  be,  between  ourselves  and 
the  perfect  Father,  is  the  great  ground 
of  our  assurance  of  a  blessed  immor- 
tality of  growth  into  the  fullness  of  the 
stature  of  our  Lord. 

We  should  have  the  same  serene  con- 
fidence in  the  triumph  of  the  Way  in 
the  world  at  large,  and  the  final  and 
universal  establishment  of  the  king- 
dom of  heaven.     Every  one  who  sees 


UNIVERSALITY         189 

the  Way  as  it  is  knows  that  there  can 
be  no  other  right  way  of  Hfe.  It  is  so 
much  better  than  the  wrong  ways  that 
he  is  sure  it  must  prevail.  No  signs 
to  the  contrary  can  overthrow  this 
confidence.  Though  superficial  emo- 
tionalists, and  shallow  ritualists,  and 
even  pretentious  hypocrites  seem  to 
flourish  and  wear  the  very  livery  of 
heaven,  there  is  no  occasion  for  alarm. 
All  that  is  hollow,  external,  insincere, 
will  in  due  time  come  to  naught. 
Every  plant  which  the  Heavenly 
Father  hath  not  planted  shall  be  rooted 
up.  For  reality  is  stronger  than  pre- 
tense. Love  is  sweeter  than  hate. 
Good  is  mightier  than  evil. 

When  the  Way  is  attacked,  we 
need  not  bestir  ourselves  to  bolster  it 
up  by  extraneous  props  and  specious 


190  JESUS'    WAY 

evidences.  If  we  live  out  its  life, 
speak  the  words  of  kindness  and  truth 
the  Spirit  of  the  Father  prompts  in 
our  hearts,  love  its  enemies  and  ours, 
the  superiority  of  Jesus'  Way  will 
shine  through  by  its  own  light,  and 
demonstrate  itself. 

We  must  not  measure  the  coming 
of  the  Way  in  the  outside  world,  any 
more  than  in  our  own  hearts,  by  im- 
mediate, visible,  tangible  results.  For 
the  kingdom  comes  silently,  imper- 
ceptibly, like  a  thief  in  the  night,  like 
leaven  hid  in  meal,  like  a  tree,  small 
at  first,  but  in  the  end  mighty  and 
magnificent.  There  is  at  first  no  con- 
spicuous change  of  form  to  which 
one  may  call  attention,  and  say,  Lo 
here,  or  Lo  there.  On  the  contrary, 
it  takes  up  the  old  materials  of  habit. 


UNIVERSALITY         191 

custom,  and  tradition  that  lie  ready 
at  hand  in  the  race,  or  community, 
or  individual  it  enters,  and  gradually 
transforms  them  into  expressions  of  the 
new  Spirit  of  love  which  it  imparts. 

On  the  other  hand,  the  old  is  not  in 
itself  more  sacred  than  the  new.  The 
kingdom  is  not  all  innovation  nor  all 
tradition.  It  brings  forth  things  new 
and  old ;  the  test  in  each  case  being 
appropriateness  to  express  that  love 
to  the  Father  and  to  our  brothers 
which  is  the  essence  of  the  Way.  To 
preserve  worn-out  ritual,  outgrown 
creed,  antiquated  phraseology,  or 
effete  institutions,  when  the  living 
Spirit  of  love  is  prompting  newer  and 
better  rites,  statements,  expressions, 
and  usages,  is  to  put  stumbling-blocks 
across   Jesus'  Way.     New  occasions 


192  JESUS'   WAY 

call  for  new  forms  of  expressing  the 
eternal  Spirit  of  love  and  goodwill. 
Yet  in  all  our  innovation,  no  jot  or 
tittle  of  what  the  law  of  love  requires 
shall  ever  pass  away  unfulfilled.  The 
man  who  will  express  his  love  of  God 
and  men  in  some  new  form  must 
keep  alive  his  keen  appreciation  for 
this  same  love  as  it  has  expressed 
itself  in  forms  the  world  has  now  out- 
grown. Above  all,  no  one  who  in  any 
form  has  entered  into  the  Spirit  of 
Jesus'  Way  will  willingly  shock  or 
grieve  even  the  humblest  or  narrowest 
of  those  who  in  some  other  form  have 
entered  into  the  Spirit  of  the  same  dear 
and  blessed  Way. 

The  consummation  of  the  Way  is 
not  coming  all  at  once ;  or  without 
bitter   opposition  and   cruel  conflict. 


UNIVERSALITY         193 

Because  of  the  iniquity  still  in  the 
world,  and  the  inherited  hardness  of 
men's  hearts,  there  must  first  be  wars 
and  rumors  of  wars ;  nation  shall  rise 
up  against  nation,  and  kingdom  against 
kingdom.  The  hearts  of  many  of  the 
disciples  even  shall  be  caught  in  the 
toils  of  political,  economic,  and  social 
selfishness  still  widely  prevalent,  and 
consequently  grow  cold.  The  disci- 
ples, through  weakness  and  faint-heart- 
edness,  shall  be  divided,  and  betray 
one  another.  False  prophets  shall 
arise,  and  lead  many  astray.  Tribula- 
tion, persecution,  and  hatred  shall  be 
the  lot  of  the  faithful. 

Yet  he  that  endureth  to  the  end 
shall  be  saved.  And  the  Way  itself 
shall  be  proclaimed  throughout  the 
whole   world,  for  a  testimony  to  all 


194  JESUS'    WAY 

nations,  before  the  end  shall  come.  It 
is  simply  impossible  that  the  world,  or 
any  portion  of  it,  should  go  on  forever, 
without  having  brought  home  to  its 
conscience  the  ethical  and  spiritual 
supremacy  of  this  Way  which  Jesus 
revealed  as  the  true  life  of  man. 

The  final  triumph  of  the  Way  was 
presented  and  accepted  by  the  early 
disciples,  in  pictorial,  oriental  imagery, 
as  the  coming  of  the  Son  of  man  on 
the  clouds  of  heaven  with  power  and 
great  glory,  sending  forth  his  angels 
with  a  great  sound  of  a  trumpet  to 
gather  together  his  chosen  out  of 
all  the  earth.  Yet  in  spite  of  such 
apocalyptic  setting,  warnings  against 
localizing  this  advent,  or  presuming 
to  predict  the  day  or  hour ;  warnings 
concerning  its  lightning-like  surprise 


UNIVERSALITY         195 

and  its  universality,  lead  the  disciple 
of  to-day  to  see  the  progressive  fulfill- 
ment of  these  prophecies,  and  the 
gradual  coming  of  God's  kingdom,  in 
the  multiplication  of  disciples  over 
the  whole  earth,  in  the  deepening  of  the 
spiritual  life,  in  the  transformation  of 
social  institutions,  and  the  elevation 
of  moral  standards  which  have  been 
going  on  ever  since  the  Master  parted 
from  the  little  band  of  half-worship- 
ing, half-doubting  disciples.  These 
forces  and  processes  are  to-day  the 
promise  and  potency  of  the  complete 
regeneration  of  humanity  from  natural 
selfishness  to  the  Spirit  of  love,  and 
the  ultimate  redemption  of  the  world 
from  sin  and  all  its  attendant  evils 
into  that  blessed  state  where  love  shall 
be  the  universal  law,  and  blessedness 


196  JESUS'    WAY 

shall  be  the  inalienable  heritage  of 
every  child  of  God ;  because  all  shall 
walk  in  Jesus'  Way. 

Individual  immortality  was  never 
the  burning  question  to  the  devout 
Jew  that  it  was  to  the  more  specu- 
lative Greek.  It  is  less  explicitly 
treated  in  the  Synoptic  Gospels  than 
in  the  Fourth  Gospel  and  Paul's  Epis- 
tles. Still,  even  in  the  Synoptic  Gos- 
pels, eternal  life  is  assured  to  all  who 
leave  houses,  or  brethren,  or  sisters,  or 
father,  or  mother,  or  children,  or  lands, 
for  the  sake  of  Jesus'  Way.  It  is 
strongly  implied  in  the  whole  tenor 
of  the  teaching ;  all  the  more  strongly 
because  taken  for  granted,  as  a  matter 
of  course. 

Though  the  emphasis  of  Jesus' 
teaching  was  on  the  kingdom  and  the 


UNIVERSALITY         197 

Way,  yet  a  kingdom  is  worthless  with- 
out subjects ;  a  Way  is  empty  with- 
out souls  to  walk  therein.  The  su- 
premacy and  eternal  triumph  of  his 
Way  of  life,  to  Jesus'  mind,  carried 
with  it  the  immortality  of  those  who 
share  with  him  that  living  Way.  A 
lover  does  not  pause  in  the  first  glow 
of  passion  to  ask  himself,  or  discuss 
with  his  mistress,  how  long  this  thing 
is  going  to  last.  That  question  indi- 
cates a  later  and  less  ardent,  even  if 
more  philosophical,  state  of  mind. 
The  sons  of  the  bridechamber  cannot 
concern  themselves  overmuch  about 
the  future,  as  long  as  the  bridegroom 
is  with  them.  Questions  on  this  point 
Jesus  answered  with  a  clear  assurance 
of  eternal  life ;  but  he  did  not  intro- 
duce them,  nor  dwell  on  them.     He 


198  JESUS*    WAY 

felt  within  himself  a  life  which,  though 
men  might  kill  his  body,  could  not 
die;  but  was  strong  enough  to  rise 
and  rule  both  this  world  and  the  world 
to  come.  Instead  of  advancing  formal 
arguments  for  immortality,  he  was 
intent  on  imparting,  to  as  many  as 
would  receive  it,  this  Way  of  life, 
which  gives  to  each  soul  who  has  it 
his  permanent  place  in  God's  good 
universe ;  his  individual  share  in  the 
Father's  own  eternity. 


EUctrotyped  and  printed  by  H.  O.  Houghton  A'  Co, 
Cambridge,  Mass.,  U.S.  A. 


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